Volcano Watch — Ruy Finch, HVO's second Director, went to the core of volcanology and apple-growing

Ruy started his professional life in 1910 as a seismologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau, the federal agency that was responsible for recording earthquakes at the time. For most of the next decade, he reported on a variety of events like earthquakes in the eastern U.S., a cold-wave fish kill in Florida, and an education outreach effort describing efforts by the federal government to safeguard life and property of its citizens.

During these same years, HVO was founded with support provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and private donations through the Honolulu-based Hawaiian Volcano Research Association. But Jaggar wanted the stability of long-term support that would only be available as part of a federal agency, and he vigorously pursued this idea. In July 1919, HVO became part of the Weather Bureau, and Ruy Finch was transferred to fill the seismologist position.

Jaggar immediately began training Finch, his new seismologist, in the ways of Hawaiian volcanism, but Finch's first few months were a "trial by fire." In September, a little more than 3 months after Finch arrived in Hawai‘i, Mauna Loa erupted along its southwest rift zone, sending a lava flow to the ocean in about 24 hours. Halema‘uma‘u lava lake, which was also active, required close monitoring. And after only 7 months on the job, Finch was put in charge of HVO—a big responsibility for the 30-year-old scientist—when Jaggar left for 3 months.

Ruy Finch was also in charge of HVO during the months preceding and during the explosive eruptions of Halema‘uma‘u in May 1924, again during one of Jaggar's absences. Finch ably enlisted a group of volunteers to make observations of the activity from several different vantage points. In particular, Finch had warned of imminent explosions only minutes before a boulder was ejected, crushing both legs of a Pāhala photographer.

Later in 1924, Finch published a short paper detailing an approach to predicting tsunami in the Pacific Ocean. While tsunami were known to be associated with large submarine or coastal earthquakes, communications were not fast enough to relay earthquake information to potentially affected communities ahead of the tsunami. Finch and Jaggar suggested that the earthquake itself could do the communication because the seismic waves travelled about 60 times faster than tsunami. This is still the foundation of tsunami prediction today.

Later in 1924, the administration of HVO was transferred from the Weather Bureau to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS established a Section of Volcanology under Jaggar in 1926, who established a second monitoring effort at Mount Lassen in California, a volcano that had erupted explosively in 1914-1917.

Ruy Finch was selected to set up and run the Lassen observatory but, in 1935, the Great Depression forced the USGS to abandon its gains in volcano monitoring. The National Park Service took over both observatories but only retained Thomas Jaggar. Finch's position was cut.

The Finch family moved to an apple orchard in Watsonville, California, where he grew apples for the next 5 years.

In 1940, Jaggar retired, and Ruy Finch was selected as the second Director of HVO. Finch led HVO through the Second World War and two more Mauna Loa eruptions while continuing to publish important scientific works in volcanology and seismology, including detailed descriptions of the Mauna Loa 1942 eruption, seismic tremor, and earthquake sequences. Illness finally slowed him, and he retired to a Watsonville apple orchard in early 1951, where he died in 1957.

HVO is indebted to Ruy Finch for his many accomplishments during these early years. He was just as comfortable delving into Kīlauea's explosive deposits as he was deciphering seismic signals accompanying volcanic events. We follow in his lead today merging interpretations of geological, geophysical, and geochemical data to get the best idea of the way volcanoes work. Ruy was a good apple.

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Volcano Activity Update

A lava lake present within the Halema‘uma‘u Overlook vent during the past week resulted in night-time glow that was visible from the Jaggar Museum overlook. The lake, which is normally about 80–115 m (260–380 ft) below the floor of Halema‘uma‘u Crater and visible by HVO's Webcam, rose and fell slightly during the week in response to a series of deflation-inflation cycles.

On Kīlauea's east rift zone, surface lava flows were active on the pali and coastal plain over the past week. These flows have been advancing slowly towards the ocean and, as of Thursday, May 3, active flows were about 1 km (0.9 miles) from the water. The flow advancement has been variable, in a "two steps forward, one step back" manner, due to the summit deflation-inflation cycles.

One earthquake beneath the Hawaiian Islands was reported felt this past week. A magnitude-2.7 earthquake occurred at 3:17 p.m., HST, on Monday, April 30, 2012, and was located 16 km (10 mi) southeast of Waikoloa Village, Hawai‘i at a depth of 38 km (24 mi).