Kilauea Volcano: ‘It’s Literally Raining Gems’

PAHOA, HI — There is a bright, shiny side to destruction wrought by the Kilauea volcano, whose rivers of flowing lava are devouring everything in their path: Green crystals called olivine are showing up near the lava flows, on beaches and, eventually, into the palms and pockets of people who are collecting these souvenirs from one of nature’s most powerful displays.

“It is literally raining gems,” tweeted Erin Jordan, a meteorologist and “science nerd” who lives in Arizona. “Nature is amazing.”

The pieces of olivine were found by friends of Jordan who live in the path of the lava. “In the midst of the destruction nearby & stress of the unknown, they woke up to this — tiny pieces of olivine all over the ground,” Jordan tweeted.

Another tweet and picture from GEOetc said: “Some olivines that popped out of an a’a flow. Kilauea’s little gems.”

"Yes, the lava that is erupting now is very crystal-rich and it is quite possible that residents might be finding olivine," Cheryl Gansecki, a geologist at the University of Hawaii-Hilo that studies the composition of Kilauea's lava, told Mashable in an email.

Olivine may be found in pieces of pumice — that is, rapidly cooled lava — or the gems may have been left behind when weaker lava rocks were crushed by car or foot traffic, she said. It’s not unusual for people to find olivine crystals in Hawaiian lava rock, whether it’s ancient or new, as in the case of that produced since Kilauea began erupting on May 3.

"It's pretty common," U.S. Geological Survey scientist Wendy Stovall told Mashable. "There’s often olivine in rocks all over Hawaii."

Common in the Earth’s subsurface, olivine is a mineral containing magnesium, iron and silicate. In some cases, the green crystals work up to the surface of old lava rocks under normal weathering conditions. But in events like the continuing Kilauea eruption, the olivine can be separated from the lava in explosive ocean eruptions that break the lava into smaller pieces, fast-tracking the separation process, Stovall said.

The lava flows themselves are spectacular displays of the volcano’s force. These curtains of fire make for art-worthy pictures of blaze orange on a canvass of black, charcoal gray or metallic silver. Behind the stunning photographs, of course, is devastation left by Kilauea’s relentless eruptions, which began May 3 and so far have covered 9.1 square miles with hot lava. On Tuesday, the volcano was still producing a large, channelized flow entering the ocean at Kapoho. As many as 700 homes have been destroyed.

The gems are perhaps nature’s consolation prize.

They “just kind of fall out” of lava that is spewing hundreds of feet into the air, Stovall said.

Here are a few tweets about olivine finds:

(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)