'Superstructure' bigger than Idaho has been growing on the seafloor by Fiji since the dinosaur age

Aerial view photograph of small islands in the Solomon Islands.

An undersea plateau in the Pacific Ocean that is bigger than Idaho first started forming with volcanic eruptions during the Cretaceous period (145 to 66 million years ago), and it is still growing today. 

In fact, the Melanesian Border Plateau, located east of the Solomon Islands, formed through four separate pulses of volcanism, all with different root causes, according to new research published Jan. 15 in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.