Hawaii Is Building Something Beneath the Surface — Scientists Are Watching It Grow

Hawaii is still being built beneath the surface.

Kīlauea has produced dozens of separate lava-fountaining episodes since late 2024, while scientists track inflation, earthquakes, gas emissions and magma movement between eruptions. At the same time, deeper seismic activity beneath Pāhala and renewed magma storage beneath Mauna Loa reveal that the island’s volcanic system extends far beyond what we can see at the surface.

In this DiscoverTube investigation, we follow the measurements scientists are using to understand Hawaii’s underground changes—from 500-foot lava fountains and deep earthquake swarms to shifting volcanic flanks, rift zones, sulfur dioxide emissions and Mauna Loa slowly refilling after its 2022 eruption.

Far offshore, the submarine volcano Kamaʻehuakanaloa is continuing the same process that created the Hawaiian Islands in the first place. Its summit remains thousands of feet below sea level, but continued eruptions could eventually build an entirely new island.

Using evidence from the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, GPS stations, seismometers, gas sensors, satellite measurements and volcanic research, scientists are watching one of Earth’s most active geological systems change almost in real time.

Hawaii is not a finished landscape.

The process that created these islands is still happening today.

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