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The islands are exposed peaks of a great undersea mountain range known as the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain, formed by volcanic activity over the Hawaiian hotspot. The islands are about 1,860 miles (3,000 km) from the nearest continent and are part of the Polynesia subregion of Oceania .
As shield volcanoes, they are built by accumulated lava flows, growing a few meters or feet at a time to form a broad and gently sloping shape. [2] Hawaiian islands undergo a systematic pattern of submarine and subaerial growth that is followed by erosion. An island's stage of development reflects its distance from the Hawaii hotspot.
It is part of the rejuvenated stage of Hawaiian volcanic activity, which occurred after the main stage of volcanic activity that on Oʻahu built the Koʻolau volcano. These volcanoes formed through dominantly explosive eruptions and gave rise to cinder cones, lava flows, tuff cones and volcanic islands.
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 ...
Hawaii has two national parks: Haleakalā National Park, near Kula on Maui, which features the dormant volcano Haleakalā that formed east Maui; and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, in the southeast region of Hawaiʻi Island, which includes the active volcano Kīlauea and its rift zones.
The Hawaiian Islands are volcanoes, the newest part of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain, created by eruption of magma from the Hawaiʻi hotspot. As the Pacific plate, moving to the northwest, carries the existing volcanoes away from the hotspot, new volcanoes form at the southeastern end. [9]
Kaʻena Ridge was the oldest of the three volcanoes to form Oʻahu and it was also the shortest when it grew out of sea level. It was about 3,000 ft. [1] Activity from Kaʻena began roughly 5 million years ago. [2] [3] Despite being Oʻahu's oldest volcano, it broke sea level 400,000 years after the Waiʻanae did. [2]
The Hawaiian islands began to form as a result of volcanic activity about 5 million years ago during the Pliocene. Due to their young age and igneous geology, the islands preserve very few fossils. Most such remains are creatures like relatively recent corals and molluscs that lived in the area when sea levels were higher than they are today.