"Lahaina and the rest of Maui" a Lahaina Travel Page by sjvessey

Near Alau Island, the mischievous demigod Maui put to sea, paddling in his canoe until he was in the open water. With his magic fishhook, he was going to pull up a great landmass from the ocean floor. He took out the fishhook, and swinging it over his head in ever-increasing circles, let it fly. The hook sailed in a mighty arc and hit the ocean with a tremendous splash. Maui started paddling as soon as the hook sank to the bottom, and was soon aware that something huge had been caught. As he paddled harder and harder, he could feel a gigantic mass rising behind him, and he turned to secure it with his net. But just as he threw the net, the land shattered into many pieces. These pieces are still in the sea, and are known today as the Hawaiian islands.

The Hawaiian chain stretches for 1,500 miles across the Pacific, consisting of 132 islands, most of which are highly eroded and submerged, growing older and older from southeast to northwest as they were created in turn by upwelling lava from Hawaiian hotspot in the earth's mantle. One million years ago West Maui was a large shield volcano near the end of its active lifespan. A smaller neighbour to the east, Haleakala, was newly emergent from the sea. A quarter of a million years later, Haleakala had become the main volcano of the Hawaiian hotspot, merging with West Maui to form a double coned island which was then scuplted into its present form by stream erosion and renewed volcanic activity, to form the 'Valley Isle' of today.