The Easter hotspot is a volcanic

Volcano

2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...

 hotspot

Hotspot (geology)

The places known as hotspots or hot spots in geology are volcanic regions thought to be fed by underlying mantle that is anomalously hot compared with the mantle elsewhere. They may be on, near to, or far from tectonic plate boundaries. There are two hypotheses to explain them...

 located in the southeastern Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

. The hotspot created the Sala y Gómez Ridge which includes Easter Island

Easter Island

Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...

 and the Pukao

Pukao (seamount)

The Pukao Seamount is a submarine volcano, the most westerly in the Easter Seamount Chain or Sala y Gómez ridge. To the east are Moai and then Easter Island. It rises over 2,500 metres from the ocean floor to within a few hundred metres of the sea surface...

 Seamount

Seamount

A seamount is a mountain rising from the ocean seafloor that does not reach to the water's surface , and thus is not an island. These are typically formed from extinct volcanoes, that rise abruptly and are usually found rising from a seafloor of depth. They are defined by oceanographers as...

 which is at the ridge's young western edge.

The hotspot may also be responsible for the formation of the Tuamotu Archipelago, Line Islands

Line Islands

The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands, is a chain of eleven atolls and low coral islands in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawaiian Islands, that stretches for 2,350 km in a northwest-southeast direction, making it one of the longest islands chains of the world...

, and the chain of seamounts lying in between.

Opponents of the hotspot theory instead attribute Easter hotspot to the middle part of the Easter Fracture Zone

Easter Fracture Zone

The Easter fracture zone is an oceanic fracture zone associated with the transform fault extending from the Tuamotu archipelago in the westto the Peru-Chile Trench to the east....

.

See also

• Easter Island#Geology
• Moai (seamount)
  Moai (seamount)
  The Moai Seamount is a submarine volcano, the second most westerly in the Easter Seamount Chain or Sala y Gómez ridge. It is east of Pukao seamount and west of Easter Island. It rises over 2,500 metres from the ocean floor to within a few hundred metres of the sea surface...
  
  
• Pukao (Seamount)
  Pukao (seamount)
  The Pukao Seamount is a submarine volcano, the most westerly in the Easter Seamount Chain or Sala y Gómez ridge. To the east are Moai and then Easter Island. It rises over 2,500 metres from the ocean floor to within a few hundred metres of the sea surface...
  
  
• Sala y Gómez
  Sala y Gómez
  Isla Salas y Gómez, also known as Isla Sala y Gómez, is a small uninhabited Chilean island in the Pacific Ocean. It is the easternmost point in the Polynesian Triangle...