Yesenia Madrigal

SMT 312 (01)

How the Earth Was Made- Hawaii
Off the west coast of the United States, in the Pacific, lies the Hawaiian island chain. A
distinct characteristic about these islands that has intrigued scientists is the way in which the
islands were formed. The islands in the Hawaiian chain could not have been created from fault
lines along the seafloor as there are no prevalent ones along Hawaii. It was not until the 1960s
when Canadian geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson came up with the hot spot theory which gave light
to the unique formation of the islands.
The difference between volcanoes in continents and the volcanoes found in Hawaii is that the
volcanoes in the continents are formed from convergent boundaries which form when two
tectonic plates interact with one another by colliding against each other. In Hawaii however, it is
believed that hot spots are the ones that give rise to volcanoes. Hot spot are formed by plumes
beneath the surface of the Earth. As these plumes surge within the Earth, they come out to the
surface and create a stationary source of heat, much like a blow torch. In this manner, the
Hawaiian island chain supports the theory of plate tectonics. As there continues to be constant
movement in the plate, the volcano (or island) drifts away from the hot spot and therefore
becomes inactive. The hot spot then continues in its same spot and begins to form another
volcano which comes out beneath the ocean until it starts to create an island from the cooling of
the lava. This process has gone on and on for millions of years and it has happened with the
Hawaiian islands.
The further an island gets from the big island (Hawaii), the greener they get. This is due to the
fact that the island is no longer sitting over a hot spot but it has drifted away and now only sits

above the sea floor. As fewer eruptions occur on that island, plants are given the room to grow.
Kauai, a case in point, demonstrates the abundance of plants as the volcano on that island has
become inactive. Eventually Hawaii will also become an island filled with beautiful green plantsas scientists have spotted the presence of an underwater seamount. This seamount, Loihi, is an
underwater volcano that has been detected off the coast of Hawaii and is believed to eventually
surge from within the ocean and become an island just as the other 8 islands have.
Another characteristic about the Hawaiian islands is that the further they get from a hot spot,
the smaller they seem to get. In part, this has to do with the fact that there are no more active
volcanoes in the island so new land in not being created from the lava flows. In Hawaii, there are
5 volcanoes which signifies that the enormous amount of lava is what has been adding more
land. According to the video, How the Earth Was Made: Hawaii, lava from just one of the
volcanoes, Kilauea, adds 20 football fields worth of land to the island. This goes to show the
impact and contribution that volcanoes have on the islands. Without the presence of lava, there is
no new land being formed. Another reason as to why the islands get smaller as they drift away
from a hot spot is that when an island sits on top of a hot spot, it is simultaneously sitting over
the swollen crust that was formed due to the cooled lava in the ocean floor. As the plates begin to
move, the pull away volcanoes from the hot spot locations which make the islands sink into the
ocean floor. The further they islands get, the smaller they get.
Learning the origins of Hawaii and of the forces that were needed to create the Pacific island
chain can help us understand the Earth and the forces that drive the many changes that occur
within it.

References
Hotspots [This Dynamic Earth, USGS]. (1999, May 5). Retrieved from
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/hotspots.html
How the Earth Was Made: Hawaii [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from
sohstream.csudh.edu/mcnulty/HTEWMhawaii.mp4
Rubin, K. (2013, June 10). General Information about Hawaiian Shield Volcanoes. Retrieved
from https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_volc.html