Date of Award

2026

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Oceanography

Specialization

Geological Oceanography

Department

Oceanography

First Advisor

Kenna Rubin

Abstract

The Big Island of Hawaii has been volcanically active since its birth approximately 1 million years ago. It is a composite edifice comprised of five volcanoes (Kohala, Mauna Kea, Hualālai, Mauna Loa, Kīlauea) that overlap in age but date younger moving southeast. During the island’s eruptive history, multiple volcanoes have been active at once, each in a different evolutionary stage with distinct magma compositions. This near constant volcanic activity coupled with intense tropical weathering, island subsidence, and sea level variability, cause island resurfacing every 100 to 1,000 years, burying geologic and volcanic history of the island quickly. This study has analyzed more than 200 submarine basalt samples drill cored off the coast of the Big Island during International Ocean Discovery Program’s Expedition 389 to identify their eruption conditions and environment, their source volcano, their age, and more, to uncover unrepresented time periods on land of Hawaiian volcanism. The absence of volcanic glass paired with high crystallinities and vesicularities reveal subaerial eruption conditions for the majority of samples, despite their submarine sampling location. Major and trace element data reveal four source volcanoes (Kohala, Mauna Kea, Hualālai, Mauna Loa) for all samples. Uranium series dates of coral and coralline algae also collected in the drill cores reveal Pleistocene aged (14 to 410 Ky) material adjacent to lava, a time period not well expressed on the surface of the Big Island. This study expands upon both the volcanic history of the Big Island and the pool of samples of Hawaiian basalt, while simultaneously examining the dynamics of the Big Island’s volcanic/magmatic systems overtime.

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Available for download on Friday, September 10, 2027

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