U.S. Army Garrison Pohakuloa Training Area continually works to support the scientific community by facilitating access to the installation.
Two recent projects include Acadia University (Canada) professor Dr. Kirk Hillier’s project on the Helicoverpa hawaiiensis moth, also known as the Hawaiian bud moth, which is only found at PTA, and the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s survey of the 2022 Mauna Loa eruption area.
“Maintaining good relations with researchers helps the scientific community and enhances our environmental program,” PTA Commander Lt. Col. Kevin Cronin said in a press release. “We’re happy to support when we can.”
Hillier has been conducting moth research in the islands since 2014.
“The reason this species is of interest to me is that it has developed in isolation on the islands and evolved for hundreds of thousands of years, most likely,” Hillier said in the press release.
He said that the Hawaiian bud moth used to be distributed and documented through all the major islands in the 1960s and 1970s. Through his years of study in the state, he has concluded that the Hawaiian bud moth is now only found at PTA.
The UH team led by assistant professor Tom Shea consisted of UH graduate students, Matt Patrick with the U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, and Andrew Harris with the Universite Clermont Auvergne, France.
Shea is with the Department of Earth Sciences and specializes in volcanology-geochemistry-petrology.
The team conducted a survey of the Mauna Loa eruption area to assess why the lava slowed and stalled at the northern most flow front.
They also surveyed Department of Land and Natural Resources land.
“USGS-HVO and UH-Manoa have long been collaborating institutions, striving to investigate and understand volcanic hazard around the Big Island,” said Shea.
He added that the two agencies are developing a new collaboration with the French university because they oversee the “sister” volcanic islands in the Indian Ocean (La Reunion), partly to broaden our understanding of active volcanoes.
“The November-December 2022 eruption at Mauna Loa and the lava flows it produced were an opportunity to work together on understanding what caused small but important shifts in lava flow direction during the crisis,” said Shea.