Mountain range

The term mountain range is used to refer to a line of interconnected mountains. Mountain ranges rise through plate tectonics.

Mountains, like Mount Kilimanjaro, rise due to volcanism. Planet Earth's lithosphere consists of plates of solid rock, that float on thick layers of molten rock. For reasons that are poorly understood the layers of molten rock have hot-spots. These are long-standing regions where currents of particularly hot molten rock upwell. Over geologic time the hot upwelling can melt a hole in the middle of a plate, releasing hot molten rock, and building a volcanic mountain.

These hot currents persist long enough that they can intermittently burst through, leaving a chain of mountains. The Hawaiian Island chain is over 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) long.