Qualla: Hawaii Hotspot

Hawaii Hotspot: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joel E. Robinson, USGS., Public domain. Trace a line on a map from the Big Island of Hawaii northwest across the Pacific, and it runs through a chain of progressively older, smaller, more eroded islands before disappearing beneath the waves as a string of submerged seamounts. Follow it far enough -- 6,200 kilometers -- and it reaches the Aleutian Trench near Russia. This entire chain, from the youngest active volcanoes on the Big Island to coral atolls so ancient they are being swallowed back into the Earth, was built by a single source: the Hawaii hotspot, a plume of magma rising from deep in the mantle that has been producing volcanoes for at least 80 million years.

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Image: Joel E. Robinson, USGS. | Public domain

Hawaii Hotspot: Wilson's Moving Plate

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G.E. Ulrich, USGS. Cropping by Hike395 (talk · contribs), Public domain. In 1963, Canadian geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson proposed an idea that would reshape the understanding of volcanic island chains. Most volcanoes form at the boundaries of tectonic plates, where plates collide, separate, or grind past each other. Hawaii sits in the middle of the Paci...

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Image: G.E. Ulrich, USGS. Cropping by Hike395 (talk · contribs) | Public domain

Hawaii Hotspot: The Life and Death of a Hawaiian Volcano

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dave Bunnell, CC BY-SA 3.0. Hawaiian volcanoes follow a remarkably consistent life cycle. Each begins as a submarine seamount, fed by the hotspot plume. Lava output gradually increases until the volcano breaches the ocean surface, becoming an island. Height and eruptive activity peak when the volcano is aro...

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Image: Dave Bunnell | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hawaii Hotspot: The Emperor's Bend

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G.E. Ulrich, USGS. Cropping by Hike395 (talk · contribs), Public domain. The Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain does not run in a straight line. About 47 million years ago, the chain makes a sharp bend, shifting from a nearly due-north trend to the northwest orientation visible today. This bend was long interpreted as evidence of a major change in the di...

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Image: G.E. Ulrich, USGS. Cropping by Hike395 (talk · contribs) | Public domain

Hawaii Hotspot: Fire Below, and Still Rising

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G.E. Ulrich, USGS. Cropping by Hike395 (talk · contribs), Public domain. The hotspot is not finished. Kamaʻehuakanaloa Seamount, formerly known as Loihi, is the newest volcano in the chain. It sits about 20 miles off the southeast coast of the Big Island, its summit still roughly 3,000 feet below the ocean surface. Geologists estimate it will breach t...

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Image: G.E. Ulrich, USGS. Cropping by Hike395 (talk · contribs) | Public domain