Through My Eyes, In My Words:

The Geologic Evolution of the Hawaiian Islands

Taught by Lawrence L. Malinconico, associate professor of geology and environmental geosciences, and Dru Germanoski, Dr. Ervin R. VanArtsdalen ’35 Professor of Geology and Environmental Geosciences

Karen Ruggles of Easton, Pa., is a double major in English and art and an avid photographer. She’s a member of a Technology Clinic team that is working with Easton’s Main Street Project on ideas for revitalizing Northampton Street and a member of an Alternative School Break Club team that will serve the needs of Native Americans in New Mexico during spring break in March. She is co-president of the new students arts organization WORDS, Writing Organization Reaching Dynamic Students, and lends her assistance to Lafayette’s development efforts by participating in phonathons. She plans to do research in East Africa this summer.

I walk back from dinner one night close to the end of my first semester as a sophomore. It is December and my feet shuffle to keep warm as the wind rips at my already chapped lips. I thank God for my tendency to deny getting my haircut as my long hair whips around my face and neck. My jacket, that I thought was so much thicker, I pull more tightly around myself as a hurried figure hustles by me. I have seen him in my interim class—meeting in evenings amidst sniffles and active pens, but have not found a place with him where I can comfortably say, “Hello.” I do not think he recognizes me anyway.

“Ya know, it’s 80 degrees in Hawaii right now,” he says, mimicking our professor’s opening line to each interim class.

I laugh and feel instantly warmer. It will be only a week until I can say with experienced eyes and feet on firm ground that Hawaii is beautiful.

A class of 24 Lafayette students traveled to Hawaii to study the geological history of Hawaiian volcanoes. We learned how to distinguish between mature beaches and relatively new beaches, how to tell the difference between pahoehoe (pronounced pa-hoi-hoi) and aa (pronounced ah-ah) lava flows, how to apply cause and long-term effect on the Hawaiian Island chain and how to scoop lava from the earth.

Every day we dealt with a new part of the Hawaiian Islands, working from the youngest, the isle of Hawaii, to its older brother, Oahu. Each island was like turning back the pages in a photo album. Our professors would ask, “How can we tell what Maui will look like in its next stage?” One of the students would answer obediently, “By looking at the older island of Oahu.” As Aloha Airlines took us from island to island we could see this process like a snapshot from a textbook—sure enough, with some imagination Oahu was just an older version of Maui and, in turn, Maui was an older version of Hawaii.

Our ventures took us to the summit of Mauna Kea (the tallest volcano in the world) to the beaches of Hawaii in flippers and snorkeling gear to a luau where native Hawaiians danced with fire to the moving memorial of Pearl Harbor – and everywhere in between. Without this experience, going to Hawaii would be an ignorant appeal of pretty landscapes and fun in the sun. To understand and be able to answer the question “why?” was an invaluable tool in appreciating my surroundings.