How old is kauai island

Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on the Big Island are volcanic mountains with a total relief of nearly 32, feet. Kauai and Niihau, at 5 million years, are the oldest of the main high islands.

The volcanic portion of the Midway and Kure Atolls are 28 million years old. An underwater portion of the Hawaiian Volcanic Ridge and Emperor Seamounts extend to the northwest and north for another miles to make the entire Hawaiian-Emperor Volcanic Chain over miles long. Owing to their isolation, the Hawaiian Islands are biologically unique.

Kauai nicknamed the Garden Island for its lush vegetation and abundant rainfall is home to many indigenous plants and wildlife. The island of Kauai is circular in shape and covers approximately square miles. Kauai is a volcanic island, rich with rain forest, swamp lands, lush valleys, waterfall lined craters, dramatic coastlines as well as the longest white sand beaches in all of Hawaii.

Commonly known as the Hawaiian-Emperor volcanic range, these mountains span from the southeast corner of Hawaii Big Island past midway and bend north across the pacific ending in close proximity to the Aleutian Islands of Alaskan.

The mile stretch of mountain peaks we know as the Hawaiian island chain stand alone as one the most isolated Archipelago in the world. The Emperor Sea mounts and Hawaiian Island chain associated with this volcanic range are formed by a fixed position magmatic hot spot, which has continually spewed molten magma from the earths mantle for the past 70 million years.

Wherever plates meet or slide against each other—at the San Andreas Fault in California, for example—earthquake activity can be particularly intense. This theory of plate tectonics accounts for many previously unexplained geological features. For example, other hotspots beneath the. The Loihi Seamount off the coast of the Big Island is now above the hot spot beneath the Pacific Plate and is steadily growing. Diagram adapted from drawing by Joel E.

Robinson, U. Geological Survey. As both individuals and societies, we are making decisions today that will have profound consequences for future generations. From preserving Earth's plants and animals to altering our use of fossil fuels, none of these decisions can be made wisely without a thorough understanding of life's history on our planet through biological evolution. Companion to the best selling title Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science, Evolution in Hawaii examines evolution and the nature of science by looking at a specific part of the world.

Tracing the evolutionary pathways in Hawaii, we are able to draw powerful conclusions about evolution's occurrence, mechanisms, and courses. This practical book has been specifically designed to give teachers and their students an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of evolution using exercises with real genetic data to explore and investigate speciation and the probable order in which speciation occurred based on the ages of the Hawaiian Islands. By focusing on one set of islands, this book illuminates the general principles of evolutionary biology and demonstrate how ongoing research will continue to expand our knowledge of the natural world.

Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book. Switch between the Original Pages , where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text. To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter. Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

Do you enjoy reading reports from the Academies online for free? Sign up for email notifications and we'll let you know about new publications in your areas of interest when they're released. Get This Book. Visit NAP. Looking for other ways to read this? No thanks. Page 6 Share Cite. Figure 3 The Hawaiian-Emperor volcanic chain stretches from the Big Island of Hawaii to Kure Atoll and then continues underwater as a series of seamounts.

Figure 4 In J. Page 7 Share Cite. But volcanic rocks also contain a radioactive Figure 5 The Hawaiian islands formed as the Pacific Ocean floor moved over an underlying hot spot in the earth, shown here by a dotted circle.

Page 8 Share Cite. Figure 6 The maximum elevations of the Hawaiian islands gradually diminish from southeast to northwest, with the newest islands being the tallest.

Page 9 Share Cite. For example, other hotspots beneath the Figure 7 The Loihi Seamount off the coast of the Big Island is now above the hot spot beneath the Pacific Plate and is steadily growing. Page 5 Share Cite. Login or Register to save!