By: Tucker Pfaff

Haleakala was established on July 1st, 1961. It was first considered as part of the Hawaii National Parks in1916 with some of the other volcanoes that are also there. It only became it’s own separate National Park in 1961.

It was founded because people wanted to preserve the Haleakala Crater. Then later they expanded the area so that the forests, rare ecosystems, and rare species of the Kipahulu Valley could be protected too.

Haleakala National Park is located on a hot spot. This is a spot in the earth’s crust where the part of the aesthenosphere is so hot and the crust is so thin, that the lava breaks through from the aesthenosphere. The lava then cools and builds up a volcano or many volcanoes on top of this hot spot. There are not many gases in the lava it is not explosive. This creates a gently sloping shield volcano. This was how the park was formed.

The whole Haleakala park is mostly igneous rock formed from the cooling lava from the volcanoes. Haleakala has some different types of rocks too though, examples are, andesites, with some basalts, and

picrite-basalts rich in big crystals of olivine and augite. Andesite, is a type of rock that is between basalt and granite. It is an igneous, volcanic rock, and the major

minerals that are inside of it are plagioclase and pyroxene, or hornblend. Picrite-basalts is also called oceanite. They are dark with yellow and green olivine phenocrysts and dark brown

to black pyroxene. Also there is a lot of pahoehoe,a form of lava flow of basaltic rock, usually dark-colored with a smooth or ropey

surface. It is one of two chief forms of lava flow emitted from volcanoes of the Hawaiian type, the other form

being aa.

Its crater is one of the biggest and best features in Haleakala. The crater is at 10,000 feet in elevation and is the highest point in the park. The crater is one of the largest in the world at 2,720 feet deep and 19 square miles. Inside of the crater there are cinder cone volcanoes.

The shield volcanoes themselves are interesting too. The shield volcanoes that make up the Hawaiian Islands are built by thousands of accumulated lava flows. Haleakala is only the third largest shield volcano in Hawaii.

Kipahulu is another special feature. It is a village in the Hana district of Maui. It has no electricity or water utilities, the water is gathered from the stream and the only outside access is the one telephone. Lastly there is the Rainforest on the southeast side of Haleakala. This part is completely different

from the dry rock of the volcanoes, it has waterfalls, pools, tropical species, and plants of all different sorts.

Haleakala has a lot of special features, and these are only a few of them.

Lava flows and cinder cones as young as 200-500 years in age are found along Haleakala's southwest and east coasts. Lava flows and cinder cones that are not much older than this were made as recently as 800 years ago.

Water weathering is happening at the shores and the cliffs at Haleakala. They are being broken down from the constant waves smacking up against them

Haleakala National Park is one of the most threatened parks within the National Park System. It has more threatened and endangered species than any other national park in the U.S. The worst threat to Haleakala National Park is from alien species (such as non-native plants and animals that are not usually in Hawaii). Alien species that are of great concern include Miconia, axis deer, feral cats, Western yellowjackets, and various ants.

The most effective and economical way of dealing with destructive aliens is to prevent their introduction. They can do this by making sure that all of the ships that transport goods to Haleakala are perfectly clean and free of species. This will be very hard, but it is the only way that they might be able to control this.

As well as this problem, the species that are being let into the park are spreading disease and killing the animals that live there. On top of all of this, there is now more limited room and habitats for these species to go and they have less food to live off of.

The other thing that is affecting Haleakala is that people there are hunting for commercial

gain, and this is killing off some of the species that are actually native to the area. Both the nene, a native bird, and the silversword, native plant, are being endangered from

tourists going off of the trails and touching them and various other things.

In the Haleakala Observatory, they are building a telescope that is the largest in the world. It is used to study the solar magnetic activity and understanding astrophysics and behavior of the sun. It will also be studying how the sun affects the earth’s climate and the finest details of the sun. The observatory’s elevation is above one third of the earth’s atmosphere. The project was proposed by the NSO (national solar observatory) and the National Science Foundation and will be funded by the National Science Foundation.

At Kilauea, the daily activities of the volcano (e.g., movement of lava flows, earthquakes, surface deformation and gas production) are monitored by the staff of the U.S. Geological Survey at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

Haleakala National ParkSoutheast of Maui

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Mack, Jim, and Camp Mary L. Van. Haleakala: the Story behind the Scenery. Las Vegas: KC Publications, 1998. Print.

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U.S. Department of the Interior. The Origin of the Hawaiian Volcanoes. U.S. Department of the Interior, 1998. Print.