The Big Island of Hawaii sits on top of a stationary upwelling of magma in the mantle. There are five active volcanoes on the Big Island still building land. As the Pacific plate slides WNW over top of the hotspot, previously created land gets slid that way also, terminating the active phase of volcanism on that land -- which then erodes.

The newest active volcano is actually still underwater just to the SE of the Big Island and is closest to the actual hotspot.

I really loved geology classes when I was at VT.