Assuming the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain marks the position of a hot spot as the Pacific Plate moved, the orientation of the chain tells us the direction of movement of the plate. There is a distinct kink in the seamount chain (easily viewable on Google Earth or Google Maps) in 47 million year old crust suggesting that at that time, the plate motion suddenly changed.
There are a couple of problems with this, though. The direction of the seamount chain is not parallel to the many transform faults, which are better indicators of plate motion. Thus, the hot spot was likely not totally stationary. In addition, paleomagnetic data from the sea mounts near the kink do not support the direction change hypothesis.
There are a couple of problems with this, though. The direction of the seamount chain is not parallel to the many transform faults, which are better indicators of plate motion. Thus, the hot spot was likely not totally stationary. In addition, paleomagnetic data from the sea mounts near the kink do not support the direction change hypothesis.