An undersea mountain named Loihi, SE of the Big Island of Hawaii, has grown 10,100 feet from the Pacific floor and needs 3,100 more feet to emerge as the ninth Hawaiian island. The five main islands are tops of volcanic mountains, formed when the Pacific Plate moved over the "Hawaiian hot spot". Their ages are: Kauai, 5.6 million years; Oahu, 3.4 million years; Molokai, 1.8 million years; Maui, 800,000 years. Hawaii is under 700,000. Its two active volcanoes are Kilauea and Mauna Loa. If theories about hot spot volcanism are correct, plate movement eventually will carry the Big Island off the Hawaiian hot spot. In a recent paper, Dr John Fasullo, an oceanographer at Columbia University, New York, said that if sea levels rise by 1 metre in this century, it would be enough to cause flooding on all
An undersea mountain named Loihi, SE of the Big Island of Hawaii, has grown 10,100 feet from the Pacific floor and needs 3,100 more feet to emerge as the ninth Hawaiian island. The five main islands are tops of volcanic mountains, formed when the Pacific Plate moved over the "Hawaiian hot spot". Their ages are: Kauai, 5.6 million years; Oahu, 3.4 million years; Molokai, 1.8 million years; Maui, 800,000 years. Hawaii is under 700,000. Its two active volcanoes are Kilauea and Mauna Loa. In a recent paper, Dr John Fasullo, an oceanographer at Columbia University, New York, said that if sea levels rise by 1 metre in this century, it would be enough to cause flooding on all