The
Hawaii hotspot is a
volcanic hotspot located near the namesake
Hawaiian Islands, in the northern
Pacific Ocean. One of the most well-known and heavily studied hotspots in the world, the Hawaii
plume is responsible for the creation of the
Hawaiian – Emperor seamount chain, an over 5,800 kilometres (3,600 mi) long chain of volcanoes, four of which are
active, two of which are
dormant, and more than 123 of which are
extinct, many having since been ground beneath the waves by erosion as
seamounts and
atolls. The chain extends from south of the island of
Hawaii to the edge of the
Aleutian Trench, near the eastern edge of
Russia. While most volcanoes are created by geological activity at
tectonic plate boundaries, the Hawaii hotspot is located far from plate boundaries. The classic hotspot theory, first proposed in 1963 by
John Tuzo Wilson, proposes that a single, fixed
mantle plume builds volcanoes that then, cut off from their source by the movement of the
Pacific Plate, become increasingly inactive and eventually
erode below
sea level over millions of years. According to this theory, the nearly 60° bend where the Emperor and Hawaiian segments of the chain meet was caused by a sudden shift in the movement of the Pacific Plate. In 2003, fresh investigations of this irregularity led to the proposal of a mobile hotspot theory, suggesting that hotspots are mobile, not fixed, and that the 47-million-year-old bend was caused by a shift in the hotspot's motion rather than the plate's.