This is a picture of a rift in our world. It was taken June 21 at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, in a rip called Fissure 8. What a remarkably utilitarian name for a tear in the planet.
I was captivated by images like these all summer, and I forgot about them when my attention turned to the next natural disaster, the hurricanes battering the southeastern US. So at a science writers’ conference this weekend, it was nice to revisit some of these hellish photos, and be reminded of why I love looking at lava.
This scene is a fearsome reminder that this planet is a roiling ball of incandescent lava swaddled in rock, topped by a tomato-skin layer of moisture and life. It is a fragile, living world we inhabit. But there’s another thing about this lava flow. Lots of things are rifting these days. Splitting at the seams. Breaking at the weak points. Coming undone. Just like the Earth in this picture.
The country is being riven by our politics. An internecine struggle is tearing apart a professional organization that I care about a lot. Some things in my life have faltered, where I really hoped the opposite would happen. Heck, my puppy even tore apart last week’s New Yorker.
But there’s a thing about rifts: They expose something new.
According to the US Geological Survey, lava fountains (lava fountains!) from Fissure 8 sprayed 160 feet into the air, “often sending a shower of lava fragments over the rim of the cone, building it slightly higher and broader.”
Of course, a volcano eruption is a hugely violent, destructive phenomenon. Some 715 structures, mostly houses, were destroyed in the Kilauea eruption, according to volcanologist Rick Wessels of the USGS. Hawaii lost 80 percent of its papaya crop.
But: lava built a cone of freshly baked planet, building it higher and broader.
Lava makes new Earth. Houses burned and roads cracked and melted, but Hawaii’s big island also gained about a mile of shiny new coastline. My professional organization might transmogrify into another thing that might be even better. My life might not look exactly the way I expected, but the unexpected can be refreshing. Eventually my puppy will get bigger, and maybe she’ll stop eating my periodicals and instead learn to fetch them.
Things fall apart, but they can be remade in the process, and the result can be something new — and maybe even better.
—
Photo credit: US Geological Survey (public domain)