Talk about a wake-up call. The world’s largest active volcano recently erupted—for the first time in 38 years! In November 2022, Hawaii’s Mauna Loa roared to life, sending a plume of volcanic gas billowing upward and flaming lava streaming down its northeast side.
The volcano, whose name means “long mountain,” makes up about half of the Aloha State’s largest island, also called Hawaii. None of the island’s 200,000 residents were harmed.
Mauna Loa is one of the state’s five active volcanoes. (An active volcano is one that has erupted in the past 10,000 years.) Another Hawaiian hot spot, Kilauea, erupted from September 2021 into early this year—although that volcano’s bubbling lava remained within its crater.
The state owes its very existence to volcanoes: Hawaii’s eight major islands and 124 mostly uninhabited smaller islands were formed by volcanoes on the Pacific Ocean’s floor. Over millions of years, lava from their eruptions cooled into rock that piled up until it rose above the water’s surface, creating islands.