Meanwhile, the island chain moves along with the drifting Pacific Plate in a northwesterly direction at a speed of about 4 inches a year. As volcanoes are thus eventually removed from the fire, their vents clog up with the last of the cooled-off lava and they become dormant. As they creep even farther, beyond any stray vents that may be poking upward, the volcanoes are pronounced dead. All the time, wind and rain erode the land and will continue doing so until the cabana bars issue last call and the once-mighty cones again slip under the sea. Nonetheless, Kauai still has a few millennia to go before basements start to flood.
Steam flares from an opening in the highly active East Rift Zone.
Mauna Loa, a part of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, rises 13,677 feet above sea level and more than 30,000 feet above the ocean floor. Experts still consider it active, although its crater at the summit has collapsed into a caldera and its last eruption was in 1984. Kilauea, however, has been pouring forth lava continuously since 1983. The magma, glowing orange or red and tumbling gradually toward the ocean, comes from a wide crack on the side of Kilauea. Occasionally, gases will force magma from its reservoir into a narrow vent from which it will explode with great force.