2.09 Island Chain Formation

Last updated over 4 years ago
9 questions
3

Use the white board tools to draw a RED arrow and indicate the direction the Pacific plate is moving. Hawaii is found on the middle of the plate.
If you need help with this question, look at the 2.09 lesson slides linked here

1

What is a volcanic hot spot?

3

Recall that hot spots remain in a relatively fixed location and allow magma to escape from beneath the crust. Based on what you've learned about the location of the hot spot, where would you expect new volcanoes to form?

(Use the white board tools to sketch where new islands will form, you may also use the text tool to type your answer on the whiteboard)

2

If the Pacific plate is moving and the Hawaiian islands are forming one after another, the rocks that make up the islands should be different ages.

What kind of data could a geologist collect that would tell you about the age of each of the Hawaiian islands?

5

We are going to examine some data from the radioactive age of rocks that were collected from each of the Hawaiian volcanoes. We will compare the ages to the distance each volcano is from the Kilauea volcano.

Plot distance vs. radioactive age, then draw a trend line that shows the general interpretation of the data points. Paste a screen shot of your graph below on the whiteboard. Watch the 2.09 *Lab tutorial video linked here* if you need help plotting your graph- You may also create your graph by hand and upload a photo of the graph. Be sure to include a title and to label the x- and y-axis. You will need to save your graph as an image and insert it in the whiteboard (see my help video if you aren't sure how to do this).

You can open the data table *here*. Since the file is read-only you will need to copy/paste the information into a new Excel file so that you can create your own graph.

2

Look at the distance vs. age graph. Describe the relationship between the age of each volcano and its distance from the Kilauea volcano.

5

Plot distance vs. elevation, then draw a trend line that shows the general interpretation of the data points. Paste a screen shot of your graph below on the whiteboard.
Watch the 2.09 *Lab tutorial video linked here* if you need help plotting your graph- You may also create your graph by hand and upload a photo of the graph. Be sure to include a title and to label the x- and y-axis.

You can open the data table *here*. Since the file is read-only you will need to copy/paste the information into a new Excel file so that you can create your own graph.

2

Look at the distance vs. elevation graph. Describe the relationship between the elevation of each volcano and its distance from the Kilauea volcano.

2

What do you think caused the islands to be smaller (lower elevations) at one end of the island chain?