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Volcanic islands form when volcanic activity initiates on the sea floor. Over many years the rock formed by successive eruptions builds up, eventually breaching the surface to form islands. This can occur in two geologic settings: hot spots and oceanic subduction zones. With a hot spot, extra hot mantle material wells up in a plume originating near Earth's core. Some of this melts beneath the crust and the resulting magma rises up through the crust, erupting to form volcanoes. This is how the Hawaiian Islands formed. In an oceanic subduction zone, two plates consisting of oceanic crust collide. One plate slides under the other an into the mantle. Seawater trapped in the rock and sediment seeps into the hot mantle rock, altering the chemistry and allowing it to melt into magma. This then rises through the crust to form volcanoes. Many of the Aleutian Islands formed by this proceeds. A similar process can occur with an oceanic plate subducting under a continental plate, forming volcanoes along continental margins.

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