 The width of the seamount, as well as the extremely gentle slope, which is very shallow even for a Hawaiian shield volcano, seem to show that the seamount suffered a catastrophic collapse sometime in its history; such a collapse is a relatively common event in the growth of Hawaiian volcanoes, caused when the volcanoes grow so fast that they destabilize.A sequence of sediments to thick compose the volcano, in several layers.Some papers refer to only the shallowest part of the volcano as Detroit Seamount, and the rest of the seamount as the "Detroit Rise."