The Hawaiians believe you cannot know something until you examine its history. It’s easy to find the basic information on Kauai’s development but a bigger question is rarely posed by casual tourist. If the majority of volcanic activity occurs on the borders of plates why are the Hawaiian islands, completely volcanic in origin, situated in the middle of the ocean?

There is much to learn about the geology of the earth and if you want very detailed information, follow the above link and learn for yourself. But if you want a simplified explanation that I hope won’t bore, read on.

The Hawaiian Ridge-Emperor Seamounts Chain of mostly underwater volcanic mountains extends from the Big Island of Hawaii to Alaska. For 70 million years this plate has moved slowly and created 125 volcanoes. Remarkable enough, but if we take a look further back in time when Kauai was barely a twinkle in Mother Nature’s eye, we learn that the unique locations of the Hawaiian islands is due to an abrupt detour the Pacific Plate took over 43 million years ago. Where it had formerly moved in a northerly direction, it suddenly shifted westward. One explanation is that the collision of the India landmass into the Asian continent caused the seismic shift. In any case, amazingly this detour settled the plate over a "hotspot" which began to form the Hawaiian Islands.

This explanation matches the mythology of Pele, Hawaii’s fire goddess, who is credited with the creation of the islands. Scientist find it rather remarkable that somehow the ancients had a sense of what was bubbling beneath the surface and even gave a name and identity to what was causing the fuss.

It wasn’t until 1963 that a Canadian, J. Tuzo Wilson, suggested that the line-up of the Hawaiian islands was likely to to a plate shift over a stationery hotspot. In other words, all the islands originated from the same source.

Kauai bubbled underwater for some 10 million years before it emerged 5 million years ago. The current highest peaks on the island, Wai'ale'ale (5,148 feet) and Kawaikini (5,243 feet) are already only half of what they were in their heyday. Meanwhile, a new island, Lo’ihi, is being formed off the coast of the Big Island and is rumored to emerge above water in about 7,000 short years. (Realtors are already getting excited.) Although completely submerged and still a youngster, Lo’ihi is already taller than Mt. St. Helens was when it erupted. Measured from the ocean floor, Maui's Haleakala is the most massive mountain on earth.

All this because India bumped into Asia 43 million years ago!