Our first day on the Big Island found us heading south, as far south as we could. To the southern most point of the United States for that matter. Danny and I were at the eastern most point of the US this summer when we were in Maine. Perhaps a life goal will be to visit the northern and western most points as well.
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| This is what the southern most point looks like. |
After visiting the South Point, we headed down a dirt road for a 4WD adventure that I will never need to repeat. I blame my poor judgment on Danny. In all of my 4WD experience, when things got ugly, Danny would just keep driving and pretend like it was all under control. Only when we found the pavement again would he admit that "Yeah, that was probably really stupid". Anyways, we made it back to the pavement and my first thoughts were "Yeah, that was probably really stupid". I am pretty sure that our safe return was only because God was pushing us out of a couple giant sand pits. Our destination was a green sand beach, which is very rare and very exciting for geologists.
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| Green Sand Beach |
There are three types of sand on this island: white, which comes from coral, black, which comes from lava (basalt) and green, which comes from the mineral olivine. Olivine is the first mineral to crystallize in underground magma reservoirs once they start to cool. When the lava erupts and solidifies on the surface, there are large olivine crystals trapped in the black basalt. These olivine crystals are mined out of the basalt and for some reason a whole bunch of them have congregated at this beach.
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| Varieties of sand on the Big Island |
Our next stop was a black sand beach, which are pretty popular on this side of the island and can be created almost overnight. When hot magma meets the cold ocean is basically shatters and then is washed back to shore. At this particular black sand beach we got the treat of seeing a sea turtle resting in the sand.
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| Nap Time |
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