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The Big Island and the Big Picture
A Perfect Balance >
Sad but true: The many disciplines of science don't often get together to see a big picture. Science is like an inn with many rooms, but the guests very rarely get to know each other well. Astronomy is in one room, geology is next door. Biology is somewhere downstairs. It would be nice if they came together more often, over dinner maybe, to discuss their ideas and better formulate a big sweeping picture of the cosmos.
I was reminded of that predicament in a recent visit to the big island of Hawaii with my astronomy club. The island itself is a wonderful reminder that none of the disciplines of science is an island unto itself. They are all interrelated - from physics and astronomy to biology and anthropology - and would benefit in that awareness.
How can an island do that? It starts with Hawaii's creation.
Our planet, unlike any we know, has an outer layer of ultrathin movable solid plates crawling over a thicker layer of semi-solid molten rock. Where the plates meet or spread apart or move by each other we have volcanic activity and earthquakes.
But what about Hawaii? It is right in the middle of the Pacific Plate, nowhere near a boundary.
The big island of Hawaii rests on a "hot spot" on the plate, a point where magma below is extra hot. So much so that it burns a hole through the plate, oozes out, and breaks above the surface of the waters to form the islands.
We can see the history of the island chain as we go from Kauai in the northwest to the Big Island in the southeast. That hotspot is staying in the same place as the plate moves above. Thus Kauai, now away from the hot spot, is the older, more worn down, of the islands. Hawaii is the youngest. In fact, Hawaii is still growing, spewing lava into new real estate near the Kilauea volcano.
But that's the not the whole island story. The physics of weathering on this planet form and shape the island into a paradise. The waves constantly pound the coastline breaking up the lava and coral reefs into beaches. The amazing water cycle on planet Earth provides a constant rain there that helps to slowly break down the volcanoes, shaping beautiful valleys in the process.
But there is more than the physical sciences at work here. Life plays a role in the shaping of paradise. Plant roots break up the hard rock which, together with dead plant material, make a profoundly viable soil, so fertile you'd think anything could grow on it.
All this makes it easy for insects and other animals to eventually carve out ecological niches for themselves. Wonderfully coordinated ecosystems fill the island.
Finally, after years of preparation, the island is primed and ready for discovery by ancient peoples sailing from other islands hundreds and hundreds of miles away. They arrive, now ready to call this island, and the others in the chain, their home. The whole process is not unlike the whole history of our own planet - in miniature.
Modern discoverers attracted to the Big Island now build the best observatories in the world on the top of its highest mountain, Mauna Kea, where the skies above are impeccably clear and free of human light pollution, a contamination that ruins the skies elsewhere. And it is here that some of the most amazing discoveries about our universe are made today, discoveries that help us to understand better the workings of the cosmos and our place in it, including the rich history of the Hawaiian Islands.
But aren't these coordinated processes taking place all over the planet, processes which mold and fine-tune this planet to near perfection? Sure they are. The Big Island just focuses it all into an intense beam of discovery and appreciation.
If you have an interest in any of the sciences and you have the opportunity to go to the island of Hawaii, do. From the active volcanoes in the south through the rainforest jungles and falls in the east to the arid snow-capped observatory-studded summit of Mauna Kea, the Big Island helps us to understand and appreciate the Big Picture of it all.
Posted by Mark Ritter at 2007.04.15 06:56 PM | Comments (0)
