Only six days after moving to Hawaii, Nalesnik found herself once again at the edge of Halema‘uma‘u using a laser rangefinder to measure lava fountain and lake heights of a Kīlauea summit eruption.

Living Aloha

Article by Adam Thomas Photos courtesy of Abigail Nalesnik July 11, 2024

UD doctoral student Abigail Nalesnik reflects on time living in Hawaii studying volcanoes

As University of Delaware doctoral student Abigail Nalesnik was slowly lowered down via helicopter to the floor of Halema‘uma‘u pit crater, located within Kaluapele, the summit caldera of Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii, she couldn’t help but notice how surreal everything felt.

She and her fellow researchers from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) — Matt Patrick, a research geologist specializing in eruption dynamics, and Kendra Lynn, a research geologist who is also a UD affiliate faculty member — had gotten off the helicopter to hike down onto one of the newly formed volcanic cones. Nalesnik was part of the team of scientists at HVO that had monitored the events leading up to the eruption; now, they were there to sample it.

The triangle-shaped hill formed as molten material ejected from the vent during the eruption and stacked up around the vent. This vent had stopped erupting as vigorously as the other vents in the area, and Nalesnik took note of the beautiful, bright blue sunny sky and the loud but wonderful sound of the erupting volcano.

The researchers put on gas masks, helmets and the necessary equipment for their planned four-and-a-half-hour study of the volcano. Nalesnik said the whole time they were working, she could hear a slight tink, tink, tink from fragments of Pele’s Hair, thin glass fibers formed by gas during volcanic eruptions, hitting their helmets.

“It was exciting and incredible,” Nalesnik said. “Being on any type of volcano is always inspiring and beautiful. To see the landscape is such an amazing thing because the eruptions themselves can be very violent and they are agents of change — changing and building the landscape, building the island, so to see that happening is just beautiful.”

While there are always inherent risks when it comes to studying an active volcano, Nalesnik stressed that she and her fellow researchers at HVO always prioritize safety and keeping the natural habitat as undisturbed as possible over their research.

“We are all about being safe more than collecting these samples and learning about the environment,” Nalesnik said. “Also, during some of my research, it happened to occur during Nēnē [the native Hawaiian goose] breeding season and because that is a very cherished native animal, their well-being comes before anything else. So, I am unable to access some of my research sites in these breeding areas until the goslings and geese leave.”

Researching Kīlauea

Nalesnik arrived in Hawaii in June 2023 after receiving a Fellowship for Excellence from the UD Graduate College and funds from a National Science Foundation intern grant that helped pay for her travel and expenses. Both of those, according to Nalesnik, were game changers, as it wouldn’t have been possible for her to conduct her fieldwork and research in Hawaii for over a year without them.

Kīlauea volcano began erupting in Halema‘uma‘u in September 2023, and it was unlike previous eruptions during her time in Hawaii. While eruptions of Kīlauea since 2018 had occurred within the pit crater of Halemaʻuaʻu, the September 2023 eruption extended from the crater out and onto the caldera floor. While also contained within the summit caldera, a large depression formed when a volcano erupts and collapses, the eruption had opened a fissure line that started to create cones on the floor of the caldera.

“This was exciting because that hadn’t happened in the past three years,” Nalesnik said. “When the fissure opened, the cones started forming incrementally so in a way we had a bit of age constraint and timing. We know the cone closest to the center of Halemaʻumaʻu formed first and the cone furthest away formed last. We wanted to collect the cinder [and resulting chemistry] from each of these cones to see if that melt changed through time in any way or if it didn't.”

Nalesnik flew by helicopter with other USGS scientists to land on the floor of Halema‘uma‘u crater and sample the cones of the September 2023 (then ongoing) Kīlauea eruption.

While Nalesnik said that it’s most likely the samples will all be chemically similar to one another — having been in close proximity to each other and formed over a short period of time — if they are chemically different, it would tell the researchers that there are new melts coming up beneath Kīlauea and supplying the cones with fresh material, rather than just one big homogeneous melt.

Her main research focus in Hawaii is Kīlauea, specifically on mapping the distribution of explosive tephra and volcanic rock fragments to help parse out what hazards and risks those eruptions can pose to nearby communities.

Nalesnik collects the tephra and conducts geochemical modeling to determine how the tephra is stored, where it came from beneath the surface, and how long the melt was sitting and crystallizing before it erupted. When she’s out in the field, she will also look at the tephra thickness and examine the different layers to try and figure out if an eruption that happened in the past happened today, what would that mean for all the people living in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park or nearby spaces.

“I look at the different grain sizes and shapes to see what type of plume they came from and potentially how high that plume was. The hazards of an ash-rich volcanic plume have serious implications for air traffic and nearby islands,” Nalesnik said. “That's kind of the overarching goal. It all comes back to people, safety, and how to prepare for something like this [an explosive eruption] in the future.”

Living in Hawaii

Studying volcanoes in Hawaii is nothing new for Nalesnik, who has been conducting research on Hawaii since 2021. What makes her recent experience unique is the fact that in addition to studying in Hawaii, she was able to live in Hawaii and experience the culture.

“Moving to Hawaii gave me such a greater appreciation of Hawaiian culture and what it means to live ‘Aloha,’” Nalesnik said.

She was able to partake in a ground-breaking blessing ceremony on a new HVO building, which included a hula performance, drums and the blowing of conch shells. Nalesnik said that land is sacred in Hawaii, and that all land is culturally significant, so breaking new ground is not something to be taken lightly.

Nalesnik was also able to see the Queen Lili’uokalani celebration at a local park, and take a vacation to Maui where she visited Haleakalā National Park and saw the annual humpback whale migration down from Alaska.

“It's been great being here. I’ve been hiking, running and swimming,” Nalesnik said. “I live right by the beach, so I swim or snorkel three or four times a week and look at the fish. Hawaii is a beautiful and amazing place.”

Nalesnik will be heading back to Delaware in the fall of 2024 to finish up her doctoral work in the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, and she said that she is going to miss Hawaii, especially one new activity that she picked up. She joined a six-person paddling team. The team paddled in a canoe made of koa wood during the Kamehameha Business Women’s Regatta, a competition geared toward amateur paddlers. Her team took home third place honors.

“We practice three times a week, and it's a great combination of exercise and community,” Nalesnik said. “It has been really fun to be a part of that. I'm really going to miss that and everything else that I’ve experienced in Hawaii when I come back to Delaware.”