Flowers in Hawaii
The Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden
The island of Hawaii (more correctly spelled Hawai’i) is often called the ‘Big Island’ so as not to confuse it with the state’s name. It is by far the largest of the chain, with a surface area of over 10,000 square km, almost six times more than the next largest island of Maui.
The Big Island and Maui are the only volcanically active islands in the state, though the last eruption on Maui was in 1790. This is because the ‘hot spot’ that brings magma to the surface from the Earth’s depths is located directly beneath them. This hot spot does not move, but the Pacific tectonic plate above it does, at a rate of just under 100 mm/year. As the oceanic crust drifts, the older islands move away from the magma ‘hot spot’, and their volcanoes go extinct. That is why the Hawaiian island chain is a long string of discrete land masses that dwindle in size the further west and north one travels (it continues past Midway Island). The ones furthest away from the Big Island are the oldest and have eroded the most over millions of years since their respective volcanos were active.
The island of Hawaii is graced with very fertile soil. This substrate owes its fortuitous mineral content to broken-down lava rock, full of calcium, magnesium, and other essential elements for plant growth.
