GEOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Volcanoes can also form in the middle of a plate, where magma rises upward until it erupts on the seafloor, at what is called a “hot spot.” The Hawaiian Islands were formed by such a hot spot occurring in the middle of the Pacific Plate. While the hot spot itself is fixed, the plate is moving.

Detailed explanation-2: -The islands of Hawai’i are still being shaped by shifts of its tectonic plate, the Pacific Plate. This causes magma to gusher out of volcanoes as lava like this eruption on the Big Island of Hawai’i.

Detailed explanation-3: -The Hawaiʻi hotspot is a volcanic hotspot located near the namesake Hawaiian Islands, in the northern Pacific Ocean.

Detailed explanation-4: -While most islands form near tectonic plate boundaries, the Hawaiian Islands are nearly 2000 miles away from the nearest plate margin. Therefore, scientists believe that the islands formed due to the presence of the Hawaiian “hot spot, ” a region deep in the Earth’s mantle from which heat rises.

Detailed explanation-5: -These volcanic islands also formed from the same hot spot. Today the Big Island of Hawaii sits over the hot spot and has the only active volcanoes in that island group. Konala, Hualaiai, Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa and Kilauea volcanoes have built the island over the last 500, 000 years.