The Determination of a Series of Ages of Hawaiian Volcanoes by the Potassium-Argon Method!

Abstract

Geologically speaking, the Hawaiian Islands are perhaps the most thoroughly studied group of oceanic islands in the world. Because of their relative petrological and structural simplicity, they constitute an example where an intensive application of the techniques of geology and geophysics may be expected to yield significant results particularly relevant to volcanology. An example of a thorough effort of this type was reported by McDougall (1964) who measured the relative ages of the surface lavas of most of the older volcanoes of the islands using the potassium-argon method of geochronology. We would like to report additional age measurements obtained by the same method, with a concentration of our effort on the Waianae Volcano on the island of Oahu. A scattering of measurements made on samples from other sites also is tabulated.