Mauna Loa Volcano, Hawaii -1930's Eruption

Remarkable silent film, 16mm Kodachrome movie film, YouTube of it's day. Probably the first color film ever made of a volcanic eruption. Mauna Loa's summit Mokuaweoweo Crater eruption filmed probably in 1933 by Harold T. Stearns, a USGS Hydrologist-Volcanologist. The lava fountains are hundreds of feet high, the erupting fissure inside the crater is about two thousand feet long. The crater floor is at an elevation of 13,100' ASL. Stearns is flying in an open cockpit at an altitude of around 15,000' ASL. Note patches of snow on the rim of the crater! At 1 min, 50 secs into the video, a plane will enter the lower right corner of the frame. View the entire 66 minute SILENT FILM compilation that was hand edited by Stearns himself, but you have to use Windows Media Player, on the file menu select "open URL" and past in: mms://video.wr.usgs.gov/movies/early_hawaiian_volcanoes.wmv This file contains all of this footage plus all of Stearn's other film covering about 15 years in Hawaii between the late 1920's and the early 1940's. Check out his kewl "text screens" LOL!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• volcanic
• eruption
• Mauna
• Loa
• USGS
• Volcano
• Eruptions
• Hawaii
• Harold
• Stearns

[beggbog]

I WAS TOLD KODAL MODEL A 16MM WAS 1923 AND COLOUR AND DEAD CHEAP ONLY A FEW HUNDRED POUNDS A CAMERA BUT THIS IS LOOKING LIKE A DREAM IN THE 1930S ITS NOT THAT ITS IN COLOUR ITS RESOLUTION IS MODERN LIKE IT WAS FILMED IN THE LAST 10 YEARS MAYBE THEY USED A PROFESSIONAL 16MM CAMERA NOT A CONSUMER ONE FROM DIXONS INCREDIBLE FOTAGE YOU HAVE SERVED US AMUTER 16MM CAMERA USERS WELL THIS THIS ADVERT THANKS IMA ABOUT TO LOAD MY KODAK 16MM 1936 FOR A LITTLE SHOOT AND A KODAK B

[mmikemoore]

@beggbog Yes, it was filmed using 16mm Kodak movie film.

[RiveramayaNatsuya]

dude its not in the 30's because even in 1945 people used b and w cameras

[mmikemoore]

@RiveramayaNatsuya One more guy that knows almost nothing about the history of still photography! LOL.

[cute7thgradeboy]

wow. I can't believe that this is from the 1930s. it's unbeleiveable

[bmanct]

This ia actually the 1940 eruption of Mauna Loa, not 1933; you can see this when comparing this AMAZING footage with still photos of both eruptions that appeared in scientific publications (e.g., Gordon A. Macdonald (1954) Activity of the Hawaiian volcanoes during the years 1940-1950, Bulletin Volcanologique vol. 15, pp. 119-179). However, color movies were made, to my knowledge, already in the second half of the 1930s.

[RiveramayaNatsuya]

@mmikemoore or maybe it was just here in philippines we use b and w cameras

[midnightblackkat]

From this angle this looks like its actually a fissure eruption!

[mmikemoore]

@2008cmh It erupted for several years....perhaps even a decade or more if memory serves.

[mmikemoore]

According the Kodak website, 16mm Kodacolor film was introduced in 1928. Hawaii was surely one of the first places it was used.