Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain

The Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain is a 6,000-kilometer trail of Pacific volcanoes and islands formed as the Pacific Plate moved over the Hawaiian hotspot. Its pronounced bend records a change in the plate’s direction.

Hawaiian hotspot: A long-lived region of volcanism beneath the Pacific Plate that feeds the Hawaiian Islands. Its volcanic activity built the chain as the Pacific Plate passed overhead.
Hawaiian Islands: A volcanic archipelago in the central Pacific that forms the youngest, mostly emergent part of the chain. The islands are the visible, youngest end of the volcanic trail.
Wilson cycle: A model describing the opening and closing of ocean basins through plate tectonic processes. The chain provided evidence that oceanic plates move across long-lived volcanic sources.
Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain age progression: The systematic increase in volcanic age from the active Hawaiian region toward older parts of the chain. Its age pattern provides a record of Pacific Plate movement over time.
Pacific Plate: The largest tectonic plate, consisting mostly of oceanic crust and mantle lithosphere beneath the Pacific Ocean. Its motion over the hotspot created the chain’s sequence of volcanoes.
Kauaʻi: The oldest of the major high Hawaiian Islands, with a deeply eroded volcanic landscape. Its age and erosion illustrate what happens as a volcano moves away from the hotspot.
J. Tuzo Wilson: A Canadian geophysicist whose work helped establish plate tectonics and the hotspot explanation for island chains. His 1963 account of volcanic island chains explained their age progression.
Oceanic lithosphere: The rigid outer layer of Earth beneath the oceans, comprising oceanic crust and underlying mantle. Volcanic edifices subside as their supporting lithosphere cools and contracts.
Hotspot volcanism: Volcanism produced when a localized mantle heat source melts rock beneath a moving tectonic plate. It explains why volcanoes formed successively along the plate’s track.
Lōʻihi Seamount: An active submarine volcano southeast of Hawaiʻi Island, also known as Kamaʻehuakanaloa. It is the chain’s youngest known volcano, still growing beneath the sea.

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