As you leave the "lava theatre," you'll see a large 

 mural of the Hawaiian Islands, a photo taken during 

 a space shuttle flight. A map shows the Hawaiian 

 chain, stretching from the Big Island to Kauai, to 

 Midway, and finally to the submerged Emperor Sea- 

 mounts. Over 90 million years, the Pacific Plate has 

 carried these ancient islands far from the Hawaiian 

 hot spot, all the way to the deep sea trench near the 

 Aleutian Islands. 



Nearby, you'll find more information on lava, 

 and samples of its different forms: smooth, ropy 

 pahoehoe (pah-HOE-ay-HOE-ay); chunks of rougher 

 'a'a (AH-ah); black sand; green sand; and gleaming 

 threads oiPele's hair. Labels tell you that, in deference 

 to Hawaiian custom, the Museum no longer collects 

 lava from Hawaii; these samples were collected nearly 

 100 years ago. 



Highlighting the stages of island formation are 

 touchable models, diagrams, and interactive elements. 

 You can peek into a mutoscope (a nickelodeon-style 

 viewer) where animated flip cards show volcanoes 

 give way to coral islands, or turn a wheel to see a mod- 

 el of how the sea floor spreads. You can test your 

 knowledge of Pacific geology with questions and 

 answers on sliding panels: How hot is lava? How deep 

 is the Pacific Ocean? What's Earth's tallest mountain? 

 Maps and labels describe the formation of other kinds 

 of islands: large continental islands, like New Guinea 

 and New Zealand, and the island arcs — like Fiji, Ton- 

 ga, and the Solomons — built by more explosive vol- 

 canoes in the Ring of Fire. 



To learn more about the later stages of an island's 

 life, visit the exhibit unit on coral. You'll find samples 

 of coral to touch, and magnifiers to compare views of 

 Pacific coral sand with Chicago beach sand. Speci- 

 mens and diagrams show the structure of corals. The 

 centerpiece of this area is a large marine aquarium 

 with living corals and live Pacific reef fish. 



Life Comes to Islands 



After introducing the basic processes that form is- 

 lands, the exhibit turns to the plants and animals that 

 live on them. Here's where our title, Traveling the Paci- 

 fic, really takes on meaning. 



While most Pacific islands are very small, the 

 ocean itself is vast — about 64 million square miles. It's 

 widest near the equator, where it measures nearly half 

 the distance around the world. The miles of open 

 ocean that separate islands from continents, and is- 



lands from each other, have had an enormous impact 

 on biological evolution and cultural history in the 

 Pacific. 



Remote islands start out as barren piles of volca- 

 nic rock. How do they become populated? The plants 

 and animals that are settled there first must come 

 from across the ocean — blowing in the winds, floating 

 on the currents, or hitching a ride on some traveling 

 seabird. Once they arrive, these visitors may not find 

 accommodations suitable for survival. Here's a good 

 example: Illinois has 44 kinds of native orchids. How 

 many do you think are native to Hawaii? The answer: 

 three! 



Why so few? Orchid seeds are like fine powder, 

 so they easily drift long distances on the wind. But to 

 grow, orchids need nourishment from particular spe- 

 cies of fungi that grow in the soil. Since the right fun- 

 gi didn't get to Hawaii, very few orchids were able to 

 set root there. These native Hawaiian species are very 

 small. All the large, fancy orchids you see in Hawaii 

 today were introduced by commercial growers. 



While some organisms can't adapt to an island 

 environment, others may find it a land of opportu- 

 nity. Without competing species, their descendants 

 can exploit a variety of ecological niches. Over many 

 generations, these descendants might evolve into 

 many new species, each adapted to a different life- 

 style. Examples of this phenomenon, called adaptive 

 radiation, abound on the Hawaiian islands. Traveling 

 the Pacific includes specimens and photos such as 

 snails, flies, birds, and plants. We'll show you how 

 some island creatures lost ancient defenses: raspberries 

 without thorns, plants without odor. You'll learn how 

 imperiled some of these unique Hawaiian species are 

 as you listen to the call of an extinct Hawaiian bird. 



It takes many generations for creatures to evolve 

 and diversify on an island during its early geological 

 stages. But by the time the island has shrunk, sunk, 

 and turned into a coral atoll it's populated by an en- 

 tirely different set of organisms. These plants and 

 animals must be adapted to survive a very rugged 

 environment. On low coral islands the sun blazes and 

 winds are forceful. The soil — what there is of it — is 

 poor; levels of salt in groundwater and sea spray are 

 high. The island may perhaps rise no more than ten or 

 fifteen feet above sea level. The dry season can truly 

 be a drought, and the wet season sometimes brings 

 storms so violent they can sweep an island clean of 

 life. In short, although it looks like paradise to us, real 

 life on a picture-postcard beach is no vacation. 1 1 



