[cogitator]

I was told that this smog, which is considered a health hazard, has really depressed real estate values on that side of the island.

The common term for it is "vog", short for volcanic smog. It's considerably worse than your everyday city smog, because it's got a lot more acid mixed in. Considering that this eruption of Kilauea has been going on for over 20 years now, I'm not surprised that the vog has depressed real estate values on that side of the island -- but I think that the actual destruction of many of the homes that were built that by the ongoing lava activity might have had something to do with it, too.

This used to be the Kalapana black-sand beach at Harry K. Brown State Park.

This is what it looked like when fresh lava covered the beach:

But there are new black sand beaches forming on the coast; they just don't have big palm trees behind them yet.

[skeeter]

Cool pictures. But unless I'm mistaken there haven't been any lava flows on the west side of the island for many years - just vog.

I took an flying tour our the island and got to see some volcanic activity from the air the last time I was there(the same tour had a fatal crash a few months later). Spectacular, if a little bumpy.