Daily Journal

Day 13 | July 30, 2005

Aogashima is the southernmost island that we are targeting on this expedition. It is a small island only reachable by boat or helicopter. When we arrived, the island was covered in dense fog. It was very humid and even at night, the temperature did not seem to drop compared to the daytime. Our rental car ("the Mold-Mobile") is covered by rust on the outside and extensive mold on the inside, clearly a result of the perpetually wet climate on the island.

After a successful day of sampling the fumaroles in the caldera (see log of 7/29), we continued our quest for olivines. Today we targeted lavas and scoria deposits exposed on the beach at the northern tip of the island. Getting down the 1000-ft cliff to the beach was probably the biggest challenge yet of our expedition. Our guide led the way through deep sword grass. According to the locals, nobody had been down to the beach in over 10 years. We climbed down steep slopes, sometimes using ropes and other times just hanging on to vegetation.

It took us several hours to reach the beach where we found boulders with abundant olivines. Needless to say, the climb up with a 30-pound pack of rock samples was a killer.