Hawaiian Island Ocean Floor

The archipelago is made up of 132 islands atolls reefs shallow banks shoals and seamounts stretching over 1 500 miles from the island of hawaii in the southeast to kure atoll in the northwest.

Hawaiian island ocean floor.

If the hot spot theory is correct the next volcano in the hawaiian chain should form east or south of the island of hawai i. A new island is taking shape more than 3 000 feet below the ocean s surface the u s. Mokupuni o hawai i are an archipelago of eight major islands several atolls numerous smaller islets and seamounts in the north pacific ocean extending some 1 500 miles 2 400 kilometers from the island of hawaiʻi in the south to northernmost kure atoll formerly the group was known to europeans and americans as the sandwich islands a name that james. The hawaiian islands hawaiian.

All of the hawaiian islands were formed by volcanoes that began from the ocean floor with eruptions over millions of years growing each island up to and above the surface of the ocean. Something is forming beneath the pacific ocean about 20 miles from the island of hawaii scientists said. A new island in the hawaiian chain. The islands of the hawaiian chain are the tops of great mountains that rise as much as 29 000 feet from the sea floor.

According to the hotspot theory assuming loihi continues to grow it will become the next island in the hawaiian chain. Loihi seamount an active submarine volcano is forming about 35 km off the southern coast of hawaii. Oahu was born four million years ago as two giant volcanoes. Now accurate bathymetric maps exist for this large area to help understandthe morphology and geologic make up of the ocean floor.

There are a variety of projects around the hawaiian islands that needaccurate offshore basemaps. With hawaii island in imminent danger of splitting in two and dropping 15 000 feet or more to the ocean floor the resultant tsunami would likely rise more than 2 000 feet high washing over all of oahu and swallowing my manoa. Loihi already has risen about 3 km above the ocean floor to within 1 km of the ocean surface. The hawaiian islands form an archipelago that extends over a vast area of the north pacific ocean.

Abundant evidence indicates that such a new volcano exists at lö ihi a seamount or submarine peak located about 20 miles off the south coast.