Diamond Head, Hawaii
Overview
 
Diamond Head is the name of a volcanic tuff cone on the Hawaiian island
Hawaiian Islands
The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...

 of Oahu
Oahu
Oahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...

 and known to Hawaiian
Native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians refers to the indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands or their descendants. Native Hawaiians trace their ancestry back to the original Polynesian settlers of Hawaii.According to the U.S...

s as Lēahi, most likely from lae 'browridge, promontory' plus ahi 'tuna' because the shape of the ridgeline resembles the shape of a tuna's dorsal fin. Its English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 name was given by British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 sailors in the 19th century, who mistook calcite
Calcite
Calcite is a carbonate mineral and the most stable polymorph of calcium carbonate . The other polymorphs are the minerals aragonite and vaterite. Aragonite will change to calcite at 380-470°C, and vaterite is even less stable.-Properties:...

 crystals embedded in the rock for diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...

s.
Diamond Head is part of the complex of cones, vents, and their associated eruption flows that are collectively known to geologists as the Honolulu Volcanic Series
Honolulu Volcanic Series
The Honolulu volcanic series is a set of volcanic events on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The events, which have been dated to between 800,000 and 30,000 years before the present, created several notable island features, including Diamond Head, the Punchbowl Crater, and Hanauma Bay.The composition...

, eruptions from the Koolau Volcano
Koolau Range
Koolau Range is a name given to the fragmented remnant of the eastern or windward shield volcano of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. It is not a mountain range in the normal sense, because it was formed as a single mountain called Koolau Volcano...

 that took place long after the volcano formed and had gone dormant.
 
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