Hotspot Volcanoes

Hotspot volcanoes grow over unusually hot spots in the mantle, not at plate edges. The plate slides over the hotspot, so the volcanoes form a chain that gets older away from it. Hawaii and Yellowstone are the best-known examples.

Last updated 11 October 2026

How a hotspot builds a chain of volcanoes

Most volcanoes grow where plates meet. Hotspot Hotspot. A small, long-lived, very hot region under a plate that feeds volcanoes far from plate edges, such as Hawaii. As the plate moves over it, a chain of volcanoes forms. Source volcanoes are the exception. In 1963 the Canadian geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson explained them with the Hawaiian Islands. USGS sums up his idea in these steps:

1. A small, long-lived and very hot region sits deep in the mantle, under the plate.
2. Its heat partly melts the plate above it. The magma is lighter than the rock around it, so it rises.
3. The magma erupts on the sea floor and builds a seamount, which keeps growing until it becomes an island.
4. The plate keeps moving and carries the island off the hotspot. Cut off from its magma, the volcano dies.
5. A new volcano grows over the hotspot, and the cycle repeats, leaving a trail of islands and seamounts.

That is why the Hawaiian Islands get older to the northwest. A sharp bend in the Hawaiian-Emperor chain shows that the Pacific Plate changed direction about 43 million years ago, USGS says. Loihi, a submarine volcano about 35 km off the Big Island, may become the next island.

Key facts

1. The Hawaiian Islands formed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, more than 3,200 km from the nearest plate boundary. In our data Kilauea is 3,523 km from one. USGS, Hotspots
2. More than a hundred hotspots have been active in the past 10 million years. Most sit under plate interiors, such as the African Plate. USGS, Hotspots
3. The oldest rocks on Kauai, at the northwest end of the inhabited islands, are about 5.5 million years old. On the Big Island they are less than 0.7 million years old. USGS, Hotspots
4. The Hawaiian Ridge and Emperor Seamounts run about 6,000 km from the Big Island to the Aleutian Trench, a chain of more than 80 volcanoes. USGS, The long trail of the Hawaiian hotspot
5. 81 volcanoes in the NOAA list are more than 1,000 km from any plate boundary. Most are on the African, Antarctic and Pacific plates. NOAA NCEI Volcano Locations Database

Hotspots USGS names, with one volcano each

USGS names Hawaii and Yellowstone, and three hotspots near mid-ocean ridges: Iceland, the Azores and the Galapagos. For each we picked a volcano from the NOAA list that sits on it. Distances are to the nearest PB2002 boundary.

Data source: NOAA NCEI Volcano Locations Database, Public domain (US Government work).

Hawaii and Yellowstone are far from any boundary. Iceland, the Azores and the Galapagos are close to one, which is why USGS groups them as hotspots near the ridge system.

Hotspot, subduction and ridge volcanoes compared

Sources: USGS, Hotspots; USGS, Understanding plate motions.

The shapes differ too. In the NOAA list, 31% of the volcanoes more than 1,000 km from a boundary are shield Shield volcano. A broad, gently sloping volcano built almost entirely of runny lava flows. Mauna Loa in Hawaii is the largest. Source volcanoes, against 9% around the Ring of Fire, where 58% are stratovolcanoes Stratovolcano. A tall, steep composite volcano built of layers of lava, ash and cinders, such as Mount Fuji or Mount St. Helens. Source . Mauna Loa, built by the Hawaiian hotspot, is the classic shield volcano.

Data source: NOAA NCEI Volcano Locations Database, Public domain (US Government work).

Volcanoes far from any plate boundary

Not every volcano far from a boundary sits on a hotspot, and USGS does not publish a full list. This table shows the volcanoes in the NOAA list that are more than 1,000 km from the nearest PB2002 boundary, farthest first. Sort by any column.

Data source: NOAA NCEI Volcano Locations Database, Public domain (US Government work).

Data source: PB2002 plate model, Bird (2003), converted by Hugo Ahlenius, Nordpil, ODC-By 1.0.

For students

Three things to remember:

• Most volcanoes are at plate boundaries. Hotspot volcanoes are not, and that is what makes them special.
• The hotspot stays put while the plate moves over it, so the volcanoes form a line, youngest over the hotspot.
• In Hawaii, Kauai's oldest rocks are about 5.5 million years old; the Big Island's are under 0.7 million.

Try this: on the map above, find the red dots in Africa and Antarctica. They are far from any boundary, like Hawaii. Then open the tectonic plates map and say which plate each one sits on. Ancient Hawaiians noticed the islands to the northwest were older long before geologists did, and told it in the legend of Pele, who moved from Kauai to Kilauea.

Related

The Ring of Fire map shows the subduction volcanoes around the Pacific. The volcano map shows all 1,603 volcanoes by type. The plate boundaries map and why tectonic plates move explain the edges hotspots are far from.