Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain
Seamounts provide data on movements of tectonic plates on which they ride, and on the rheology of the underlying lithosphere. The trend of a seamount chain traces the direction of motion of the lithospheric plate over a more or less fixed heat source in the underlying asthenosphere, the part of the Earth's mantle beneath the lithosphere. There are thought to be up to an estimated 50,000 seamounts in the Pacific basin. The Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain is an excellent example of an entire volcanic chain undergoing this process, from active volcanism, to coral reef growth, to atoll formation, to subsidence of the islands and becoming guyots.