Word: loa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...flanks of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, an instrument that records the concentration of carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere as a result of all this activity traces a wobbly rising line that gets steeper and steeper with time. Sometime in the next 50 years, say climatologists, all that carbon dioxide, trapping the sun's heat like a greenhouse, could begin to smother the planet, raising temperatures, turning farmland to desert, swelling oceans anywhere from four feet to 20 feet. Goodbye Venice, goodbye Bangladesh. Goodbye to millions of species of animals, insects and plants that haven't already succumbed to acid...
When the world's largest active volcano erupted for the first time in nine years, it did so with spectacular fury. Fountains of fiery lava shot 400 ft. into the air from the 1½-mile-wide crater at the summit of Mauna Loa (13,677 ft.). The lava spilled down blackened mountain slopes in thick rivers of gleaming marigold fire, looking demonically magical, an apprentice sorcerer's wish for gold gone awry. At week's end the menacing wall had oozed to within four miles of Hawaii's second-largest city, Hilo...
...Mauna Loa's flow started to slow, its famous and recently active neighbor, Kilauea, 20 miles away, began a new eruption of its own: it is the first time the two volcanoes have spurted simultaneously since 1868. There were, in addition, apocalyptic rumblings on the mainland, where Washington State's Mount St. Helens was once more sputtering smoke...