Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
According to the Hawaiian creation myth, the Hawaiian Islands were created at Mauna
Kea, the home of the gods. That's not too far from the geological explanation, either.
Between 40,000 and 13,000 years ago, Mauna Kea's deep roots tapped into a hot spot, an
area in the Earth's mantle that acts like a molten well, causing frequent eruptions. Thanks
to the drift of oceanic plates, it has since slid off the hot spot, rendering the mighty
mountain dormant, with the last eruption occurring some 4500 years ago.
Certain plants and animals adapted to this unique environment. Ascending the moun-
tain, biological zones shift from rainforest to koa-and-ohia forest to open woodland to
shrubs and finally (above 11,500ft) to alpine desert. Every elevation has species endemic
to Hawaiʻi, and some found only here. Plants endemic to the summit include the bizarre
Mauna Kea silversword, which takes 50 years to flower, and does so only once.
Summit creatures are restricted mostly to insects. Strangest by far is the endemic
wekiu,
a bug that increases the salt content in its bodily fluids to lower their freezing
point. Further down the mountain, several of Hawaiʻi's endemic birds call Mauna Kea
home, such as the nene and the
palila
(finch-billed honeycreeper), as well as the en-
dangered Hawaiian bat, the
ʻopeʻapeʻa
.
Westerners arriving here in the late 1700s introduced feral cattle, goats and sheep. By
the early 20th century these animals had decimated the mountain's natural environment.
Animal eradication efforts, begun in the 1920s and continuing today, have helped nature
partly restore itself.
In 1960 astronomer Gerard Kuiper placed a telescope on Puʻu Poliʻahu and announced
that ʻthe mountaintop is probably the best site in the world from which to study the
moon, the planets and stars.' Kuiper turned out to be right.
In 1968, the same year the first Mauna Kea observatory was built, the University of
Hawaiʻi (UH) was granted a 65-year lease to the summit area, now called the Mauna Kea
Science Reserve. The university leases property to others, and 13 telescopes are currently
in operation, more than on any other single mountain, including three of the world's
largest. Their combined light-gathering power is 60 times greater than the Hubble Space
Telescope.
Given the environmental and cultural concerns, building on Mauna Kea has led to
some heated conflicts in the past. Today concerted efforts are being made to balance the
needs of all stakeholders in the construction of an immense Thirty Meter Telescope
(
www.tmt.org
). While the TMT will be the world's most accurate, multiplying by nine
the collecting area of current optical telescopes, its structural footprint will be larger than
any other observatory currently on Mauna Kea's summit. On the other hand, in tradition-
al Hawaiian mythology the navel, or
piko
, is the central connection between the individu-
