Shipboard report for Hawaii GLORIA ground-truth cruise F11-88-HW, 25 Oct.-7 Nov., 1988

Abstract

GLORIA side-scan imagery of the region north of Oahu was collected during two cruises in the spring of 1988. These cruises, F4-88-HW and F6-88-HW, discovered an extensive lava flow field on the Hawaiian Arch and extensive landslide deposits that moved down through the Hawaiian Moat and up onto the Hawaiian Arch. These landslide deposits were apparently derived from two separate submarine failures on the north side of Molokai and the northeast side of Oahu. The cruise reports for these cruises will be released as USGS Open-File Reports in 1989. This report summarizes the results of a subsequent cruise, F11-88-HW on the R/V Farnella, to sample some of the features discovered during the prior GLORIA surveys. Cruise F11-88-HW began in Honolulu on Oct. 25, 1988 and ended in Honolulu on Nov. 7, 1988. The major objectives of the cruise were to sample the giant lava field north of Oahu (Figure 1), to sample an apparently young flow between Oahu and Kauai (Figure 2) , to do some preliminary sampling of the deposits of the Nuuanu giant landslide northnortheast of Oahu, and to determine the thickness of sediment on flows in this lava field to compare to the acoustic backscatter variations observed in the GLORIA imagery of the flow field. These objectives were modified during the cruise due to rough seas which limited the deployment of the camera sled and to problems with the coring equipment which limited us to collecting 10 ft gravity cores. In particular, we did not complete any work aimed directly at the Nuuanu landslide deposits. The comparison of sediment thickness on the flows to observed acoustic backscatter on the GLORIA images was not completed because flows with intermediate backscatter were found to have thicker sediment than we could sample. The other objectives were achieved and lava samples of the flows and vents of the flow field were recovered from 23 locations. Gravity cores on top of the flows also determined the sediment thickness at 12 locations. The flow between Oahu and Kauai was sampled and photographed and found to be young, but clearly not historic in age.