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Mauna Kea
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Two huge mountains dominate the Big Island: Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Mauna Loa means "dark mountain" and Mauna Kea means "white mountain." In the winter, Mauna Kea lives up to its name and is often covered with fierce snowstorms. However, its location in the middle of the Pacific and the high altitude (over 13,000 feet) combine to make Mauna Kea one of the top places in the world for astronomical observation. In this photo of Mauna Kea, you can see two small white dots on the very top of the mountain. These two white dots are the two telescopes of the Keck Observatory. The mountain looks shorter than it is because it is a shield volcano. In a shield volcano, lava flows pile on top of one another, forming many layers of rock and a wide, gradually sloping mountainside.
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