ABSTRACT
The Hawaiian Islands were formed by volcanoes in the center of the Pacific Basins Ring of Fire, a great circle of more than two hundred and fifty active and many more dormant erupted mountains that stretches from the tip of South America up to the Aleutian Islands and down the oceans other side through Japan to New Zealand. It roughly traces the edge of the Pacific Tectonic Plate whose geological contention with adjoining plates in the process of continental drift is the basis for the Rings volcanic action. The Islands unique location at the middle of the Ring might account for the massively strong force that continues to be exerted in their construction. Peter Berg carefully makes his way across hot lava at Volcanoes National Park in the Hawaiian Islands. Bergs reverential tone turns suddenly ominous when he catalogues the unprecedented damage that humans have caused to the biosphere in the past two hundred years.
