How did the main Hawaiian Islands grow above the ocean surface?
Show answer & explanation
Answer: Repeated eruptions piled up layers of volcanic rock
Corals built the entire islands from their skeletons — Corals did not build the main Hawaiian Islands from the seafloor. Reefs can grow around volcanic islands, but the large rock foundations of these islands were built by eruptions.
Repeated eruptions piled up layers of volcanic rock ✓ — Repeated eruptions built volcanoes from the seafloor until their summits rose above sea level. The Pacific Plate moving over a volcanic hot spot produced the Hawaiian island chain. This is one way islands form, not the origin of every ocean island.
Colliding plates pushed a piece of continent upward — The Hawaiian Islands did not form by a continental fragment being squeezed upward at a plate collision. They formed within the Pacific Plate, where magma erupted over a hot spot.