The Hawaiian chain of volcanoes is many things : prominent , incandescent , and – volcanologically verbalize – unique . As a newNaturestudy by the Australian National University ( ANU ) has pointed out , these volcanoes are essentially pen of two tracks growing alongside each other , and they consider they finally know why .
At present , the region ’s effusive volcanism is center on the vent of Kilauea , but in 10,000 - 100,000 year , this will move ontoLo’ihi , an underwater seamount ( volcano ) that will one day rise up above the waves and form the newest island in the Hawaiian chain .
The creation of the nonextant volcanic islet in the Ernst Boris Chain , Lo’ihi ’s parturition , and Kilauea ’s eruptive body process is all down to an upwelling superheated drapery feather . This type of “ hotspot ” volcanism can be found in several other place across the human beings , which causes a vast degree of melting in the gall and produce a lot of magma that often unendingly erupts on the surface .
As the Pacific tectonic home plate continues to drift around the world , the hotspot remain stationary , so it unthaw the Earth’s crust along a path – consequently , you have a chain of vent .
That ’s not all there is to the extremely unusual Hawaiian hot spot . If you seem at them on a function , you ’ll notice another section , the Emperor Chain , bending off quite sharply in another focus .
This could n’t be explicate by the movement of the Pacific shell , but a team of volcanologists last yr worked out that it was because the pallium pluck itself wasbentaround 50 - 100 million years ago . This meant that it was n’t run crust directly above it , but to the side of it , so to address – hence the bend dexter in the Emperor - Hawaiian Seamount Chain .
Whatever make this feather to warp – a sudden flow change in the mantle , likely – it also appears to have “ break up ” the melting regions in the impudence between one of gamey - pressure and another of low - press . This generated two zones of parallel but distinctive volcanism , call Loa and Kea .
Hawaii ’s two volcanic tracks have been known about for sometime , but their ancestry has been unclear until now . Tim Jones / ANU
allot to the team ’s models , around 3 million years ago , this two-fold - pluming was exasperate by a sudden variety in the movement of the Pacific crustal plate . This helped make the two small hotspots more distinct , and as the plateful proceed to drift around , two volcanic “ tracks ” were organize .
This helped push magma up across a wider area , which explain why the Hawaiian volcanoes are so twisty . Indeed , Mauna Loa was for a prospicient time thought to be the humankind ’s largest volcano – this has since been pushed to second place byTamu Massifin the Northwest Pacific Ocean , which is the size of it of New Mexico .
One mean solar day , the plume will reset itself and coordinate with the Pacific Plate , thereby merging the two volcanic cut into one .
