The Easter hotspot is a

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

hotspot located in the southeastern

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

. The hotspot created the

Sala y Gómez Ridge Sala or SALA may refer to: Places Europe * Sala, the historical name of the river IJssel and home of the Salii Franks * Sala (Estonian island), one of the Uhtju islands * Sala Baganza, a municipality in Emilia-Romagna, Italy * Sala Bolognese, ...

which includes

Easter Island Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its ne ...

, Salas y Gómez Island and the

Pukao Pukao are the hat-like structures or topknots formerly placed on top of some moai statues on Easter Island. They were all carved from a very light-red volcanic scoria, which was quarried from a single source at Puna Pau. Symbolism Pukao were not ...

Seamount which is at the ridge's young western edge. Easter Island, because of its tectonomagmatic features (low eruptive rate, scattered rift zones, and scarce lateral collapses), represents an end-member type of hotspot volcano in this chain. The hotspot may also be responsible for the formation of the

Tuamotu Archipelago The Tuamotu Archipelago or the Tuamotu Islands (french: Îles Tuamotu, officially ) are a French Polynesian chain of just under 80 islands and atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean. They constitute the largest chain of atolls in the world, extendin ...

, Line Islands, and the chain of seamounts lying in between.

References

External links

* Volcanism of Chile Hotspots of the Pacific Ocean Geography of Easter Island {{Volcanology-stub

See also

References

External links