Haleakala

Haleakala National Park was established on the island of Maui to preserve the outstanding features of Haleakala Crater. Later additions to the park gave protection to the unique and fragile ecosystems and rare biotic species of Kipahulu Valley, the scenic pools along 'Obe'o Gulch, and the coast. Haleakala is the largest eastern dormant volcano, reached its greatest height, 3,600 meters (12,000 feet) above the ocean--some 9,100 meters (30,000 feet) from its base on the ocean floor.

Click on any photo below to magnify

Haleakala Crater,
House of the Sun


Inside Crater,
Haleakala National Park


Cinder Cones,
Haleakala National Park


Haleakala Summit,
Haleakala National Park


Cinder Cones,
Haleakala National Park


Lava Flow Rock,
Haleakala National Park


The silversword plant, called ahinahina or "gray-gray" by the Hawaiians is a member of the sunflower family. It grows for 5 to 20 years. This spectacular plant with its many dagger-like silvery leaves develops a cluster of 100 to 500 yellow and reddish-purple flower heads. It blooms once in its life and dies after blooming. It probably descended from ancestors whose seeds was carried by air currents across the Pacific from the Americas.

Of Volcanos and the Sea -- Of Valleys and Cascades
Haleakala Crater is now a cool, cone-studded reminder of a once-active volcano. Streaks of red, yellow, gray, and black trace the courses of recent and ancient lava, ash, and cinder flows. The volcanic rocks slowly break down as natural forces reduce them to minute particles which are swept away by wind, heavy rain, and intermittent streams. A fiery birth beneath the sea Modern geology indicates that the Hawaiian Islands are situated near the middle of the "Pacific Plate," one of a dozen thin, rigid structures covering our planet like the cracked shell of an egg. Though adjoining each other, these plates are in constant slow motion, the Pacific Plate moving northwestward several centimeters per year. Scattered around the world are many weak areas in the earth's crust where magma slowly wells upward to the surface as a "plume." Here volcanoes and volcanic "lands, such as Maui, are born. This constant northwestward movement of the Pacific Plate over a local volcanic "hot spot," or plume, has produced a series of islands one after another in assembly line fashion. The result is a chain of volcanic islands stretching from the island of Hawaii along a southeast- northwest line for 4,050 kilo- meters (2,500 miles) toward Japan.

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Website Design and Construction by Lynn Marie Tillquist
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