Plate Tectonics and the Hawaiian Hot Spot
by Robert Tilling, Christina Heliker, and Donald Swanson
Origin of the Hawaiian Islands
The Hawaiian Islands are the tops of gigantic volcanic mountains formed by countless eruptions of fluid lava over several million years; some tower more than 30,000 feet above the seafloor. These volcanic peaks rising above the ocean surface represent only the tiny, visible part of an immense submarine ridge, the Hawaiian Ridge—Emperor Seamount Chain, composed of more than 80 large volcanoes.
This range stretches across the Pacific Ocean floor from the Hawaiian Islands to the Aleutian Trench. The length of the Hawaiian Ridge segment alone, between the Island of Hawai'i and Midway Island to the northwest, is about 1,600 miles, roughly the distance from Washington, D.C., to Denver, Colorado. The amount of lava erupted to form this huge ridge, about 186,000 cubic miles, is more than enough to cover the State of California with a layer 1 mile thick.
https://geology.com/usgs/hawaiian-hot-spot/
