like all hawaiian volcanoes, mauna kea has been created as the pacific tectonic plate has moved over the hawaiian hotspot in the earth's underlying mantle. the hawaii island volcanoes are the most recent evidence of this process that, over 70 million years, has created the -long hawaiian ridge–emperor seamount chain. the prevailing, though not completely settled, view is that the hotspot has been largely stationary within the planet's mantle for much, if not all of the cenozoic era. however, while hawaiian volcanism is well understood and extensively studied, there remains no definite explanation of the mechanism that causes the hotspot effect.