Hawaii sits at the end of a chain of volcanoes running across the Pacific Ocean floor, but in the middle of this chain lies a bend of 60 degrees. For many decades geoscientists have struggled to explain exactly how and why this feature occurred around 50 Million years ago. A new study in Science Advances led by postdoctoral researcher Mathew Domeier along with colleagues from the Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED), University of Oslo, sheds light on this long-standing geological controversy – A massive collision at the edge of the Pacific Ocean was the culprit.