Lake Waiau, Big Island, Hawaii
Lake Waiau could be a tiny lake slightly below the summit of MaunaKea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. It is also one of all the very best lakes in the United States with an associate degree elevation of 13020 feet (3,970 m) and is that the solely alpine lake within the state of Hawaiʻi.
This lake is extremely attention-grabbing each from a mythological and scientific perspective. As an example, it started debilitating in 2010 and had virtually disappeared in 2013. Luckily, it started filling up once more with some huge winter storms in 2014 and had most stuffed up once more by 2018. Lakes area unit rare options among the volcanic slopes of the Hawaiian island chain. The few basins that would endure on these slopes area unit commonly on prime of porous volcanic rock flows or clinker and ash, that favor the speedy flowing of precipitation. Yet, Lake Waiau exists.
- A doable rationalization for the lake is that sulfur-bearing steam from MaunaKea altered the cinders and ash regionally to fine clay minerals that cut back the porousness of the soil. This reduced porousness will account for the retention of water, that successively ends up in the formation of Lake Waiau.
- A second rationalization involves the glacial past of MaunaKea. Long ago, the summit of MaunaKea hosted glaciers. Fine-grained ash beds area unit normally created once-rising rock interacts with shallow groundwater or surface water. If associate degree eruption occurred to a lower place glacial ice, these ashes might be created, and, up to the present day, slow the flowing of water from the tiny crater.
- The last rationalization posits that the run-resistant layer to a lower place Lake Waiau is created of land. The land has been found to exist at the MaunaKea summit cone. Shallow holes trained 30 years ago had this land at depths of 10 m (33 ft).
