Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Tectonic plates generally focus deformation and volcanism at plate boundaries.However, the Hawaii hotspot is more than 3,200 kilometers (1,988 mi) from the nearest plate boundary; [1] while studying it in 1963, Canadian geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson proposed the hotspot theory to explain these zones of volcanism so far from regular conditions, [3] a theory that has since come into wide acceptance.
Unlike most active volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean that make up the active plate margins on the Pacific Ring of Fire, Kamaʻehuakanaloa and the other volcanoes of the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain are hotspot volcanoes and formed well away from the nearest plate boundary. Volcanoes in the Hawaiian Islands arise from the Hawaii hotspot, and ...
At that point, erosion of the volcano and subsidence of the seafloor cause the volcano to gradually diminish. As the volcano sinks and erodes, it first becomes an atoll island and then an atoll. Further subsidence causes the volcano to sink below the sea surface, becoming a seamount.
Map showing approximate location of many current hotspots and the relationship to current tectonic plates and their boundaries and movement vectors The origins of the concept of hotspots lie in the work of J. Tuzo Wilson , who postulated in 1963 that the formation of the Hawaiian Islands resulted from the slow movement of a tectonic plate ...
Geologic map of the summit region of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai (Map). 1:24,000. Geologic Investigations Series I-2759. United States Geological Survey. 2003; Geologic map of the middle east rift geothermal subzone of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaii (PDF) (Map) (1.0 ed.). 1:24,000. Geologic Investigations Series I-2614.
Mauna Kea (/ ˌ m ɔː n ə ˈ k eɪ ə, ˌ m aʊ n ə-/, [6] Hawaiian: [ˈmɐwnə ˈkɛjə]; abbreviation for Mauna a Wākea) [7] is a dormant shield volcano on the island of Hawaiʻi. [8] Its peak is 4,207.3 m (13,803 ft) above sea level, making it the highest point in Hawaii and the island with the second highest high point, behind New Guinea, the world's largest tropical island with ...
Like all Hawaiian volcanoes, Mauna Loa was created as the Pacific tectonic plate moved over the Hawaii hotspot in the Earth's underlying mantle. [10] The Hawaii island volcanoes are the most recent evidence of this process that, over 70 million years, has created the 3,700 mi (6,000 km)-long Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain. [11]
The Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain is a mostly undersea mountain range in the Pacific Ocean that reaches above sea level in Hawaii.It is composed of the Hawaiian ridge, consisting of the islands of the Hawaiian chain northwest to Kure Atoll, and the Emperor Seamounts: together they form a vast underwater mountain region of islands and intervening seamounts, atolls, shallows, banks and reefs ...