Dick Fiske, who died on June 18 as he neared his 93rd birthday, was one of the most original thinkers ever at the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO). His ideas, interpretations, and concepts underlie much of current thinking about Kīlauea volcano.
Volcano Watch is a weekly article and activity update written by U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists and affiliates. This week's article is by HVO scientist emeritus Don Swanson.
A geologist at HVO in 1965-1968, Dick continued his devotion to Kīlauea research for the rest of his career while employed at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, including several years as the museum's director. Much of his early research predated space-based volcano measurements, and his work tends be swamped by more current data.
Dick, his wife, Pat, and their young family arrived at HVO in time for a small eruption in Aloʻi Crater on Christmas Eve and Day in 1965 and a stupendous episode of seismicity and ground breakage along the Koaʻe fault system extending west from Aloʻi into the Kaʻū Desert. As the window casings in their National Park house rattled with the earthquakes, Dick immediately started thinking of how such a small eruption could trigger such faulting.
Dick was disappointed that so little was known about the Koaʻe fault system and resolved to do something about it. He laid out leveling lines across the Koaʻe to enable future deformation to be monitored, and he established stations to measure movement of individual faults. Many of these leveling and fault-monitoring stations are still used today by University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo researchers. Data from these measurements led Dick and colleagues to publish interpretive papers about the nature of the Koaʻe fault system and its relation to the rest of the volcano.
At his home in Maryland, Dick constructed large physical models made of gelatin to emulate the shield volcanoes Mauna Loa and Kīlauea, and he injected colored water into them to see how the volcanoes deformed. These results supported the concepts that he and others were developing about the direction of the rift zones and how Kīlauea's south flank moves. He joked that, when the experiments were over, his kids could eat the volcanoes.
While at the Smithsonian, Dick enabled museum exhibits celebrating HVO's 75 anniversary in 1987 and arranged for publication of "gray literature" containing observations that HVO had produced over the years. This effort proves invaluable to current researchers.
In the late 1980s, Dick started returning to Kīlauea for several weeks every year, refurbishing and measuring the leveling lines across the Koaʻe. This led to questions about the frequency of faulting events and led to an attempt to estimate recurrence intervals of the faulting by examining the geologic evidence. This work revealed deposits of explosive tephra interlayered with the dominant lava flows. It didn't take long before the explosive deposits became the primary interest, and that was the foundation for our current interpretation that Kīlauea can be an explosive volcano, not one that only erupts lava flows.
Dick's concern with Kīlauea's structure and history led him to worry quietly about what he perceived as an overemphasis on the "here and now" of eruptions themselves. He pointed out that HVO is a Volcano observatory, not an Eruption observatory.
We met at Johns Hopkins University in 1961, when he and Pat returned from a postdoc in Japan and he resumed his work at Mount Rainier. I was a second-year graduate student working in an area near Mount Rainier. Since then, our research interests frequently intersected in Washington and at Kīlauea.
At a dinner at the Fiskes in early 1963, Pat suggested that I apply for a postdoc in Europe, which was successful and ultimately led to a USGS position. Dick suggested that I replace him at HVO in 1968 when he transferred back to the mainland. In 1980, he enabled me to use a Smithsonian electronic instrument (Geodimeter) to measure the movement of Mount St. Helens as it built toward its cataclysmic eruption. And it was Dick who invited me to join his research at Kīlauea in the early 1990s, ultimately leading to my return to the HVO staff later that decade.
The science of volcanology has lost a deep and questioning thinker, but his legacy endures and influences research today. His many friends and colleagues mourn his passing more than words can express.
Volcano Activity Updates
Kīlauea has been erupting episodically within the summit caldera since December 23, 2024. Its USGS Volcano Alert level is WATCH.
Episode 32 of the Kīlauea summit eruption in Halemaʻumaʻu crater occurred over 13 and a half hours on August September 2. Summit region inflation since the end of episode 32 suggest another episode is possible, though more data is needed to forecast a potential timeline. Sulfur dioxide emission rates are elevated in the summit region during active eruption episodes. No unusual activity has been noted along Kīlauea's East Rift Zone or Southwest Rift Zone.
Mauna Loa is not erupting. Its USGS Volcano Alert Level is at NORMAL.
Two earthquakes were reported felt in the Hawaiian Islands during the past week: a M3.0 earthquake 35 km (21 mi) S of Fern Forest at 48 km (29 mi) depth on September 3 at 6:40 p.m. HST and a M2.7 earthquake 5 km (3 mi) S of Pa'auilo at 12 km (7 mi) depth on September 3 at 1:25 a.m. HST.
HVO continues to closely monitor Kīlauea and Mauna Loa.
Please visit HVO's website for past Volcano Watch articles, Kīlauea and Mauna Loa updates, volcano photos, maps, recent earthquake information, and more. Email questions to [email protected].