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Hawaii's Next Island
下一個夏威夷超級火山
Look at a map of Hawaii and you'll seevolcanic islands strung outlike pearls on a necklace. The biggest–and theyoungest–is Hawaii, in thesouth-east corner.
隨便翻看一張夏威夷的地圖，你會發現夏威夷的火山島分布得就像串在一條項鏈上的一顆顆珍珠一樣。其中威力最大——也是最年輕的火山，當屬夏威夷東南角的夏威夷火山。
As the islands stretch away to thenorth-west they become olderand more worn. While Hawaii is about a millionyears old, the extinctvolcano ofKauai on the north-west end is five timesolder.
隨著島嶼不斷地向西北方向延伸，各大火山變得越來越陳舊，破敗。雖然說夏威夷已歷經了一百萬年的歲月，但是，在西北端考艾島的死火山卻已是其五倍了。
The Hawaiian islands were formed by whatgeologists call “hot spot”volcanos. These occur where hot magma from theEarth's liquid mantle issteadily forced through the Earth's crust.
夏威夷群島是由地質學家們所稱的“火山熱點”組成。“火山熱點”處在由地幔（又稱軟流層，很可能是巖漿的發源地）產生的熾熱的巖漿不斷地被噴出地殼的地方。
Hot spots can last for millions of years,staying in the sameplace while the plates of the Earth's crust move graduallyoverhead.
“火山熱點”能持續活動數百萬年。就算是地殼板塊活動而漸漸居于其上，“火山熱點”也一直都不會改變地方。
The plates of the Earth's crust move atuneven speeds, so when theplate moves slowly, this allows a tremendous volcanoto build up. That's why weget a string of separate volcanos, rather than acontinuous line.
地殼板塊不是以均勻速度移動的，因而，當板塊運動較慢時，一個巨大的火山就可“趁機”形成。這就是為什么火山是一個單獨的火山，而不是一片連續不斷的火山了。
This is exactly what's happened with theHawaiian islands. The hotspot stayed in the same place, pushing up a string ofvolcanos as the Earth'scrust moved over it.
在夏威夷群島上也就是如此。“火山熱點”一直在某個地方，在地殼板塊對其作用時形成了一座又一座的火山。
Because of this, the volcano on north-westKauai is old andextinct, while the volcanos on Hawaii's south-east edge are themost active inthe world.
因此，西北端考艾島上的火山都是很老的死火山，然而，位于夏威夷東南邊的火山卻是世界上活動最頻繁的活火山。
The Hawaiian hot spot is now located aboutseventeen miles off thesouth-east coast of Hawaii. There's nonew island there,but thereis a huge, underwater volcano, rising almost three miles above theocean floor.
而今，夏威夷的“火山熱點”位于夏威夷東海岸約17英里的地方。目前，那里還沒有新的島嶼形成，但是那里有一座很大很大的海底火山，高出海底足有三英里高。
Thisnew volcano will break the ocean'ssurface in about fifty thousand years,giving us our next Hawaiian island.
在未來的五萬年里，這座新火山將會使海底地殼斷裂，創造出下一個夏威夷火山。
