Louisville Ridge
The Louisville Ridge, also known as the Louisville Seamount Chain, is an underwater chain of over 70 seamounts in the Southwest Pacific Ocean. As one of the longest seamount chains on Earth it stretches some from the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge northwest to the Tonga-Kermadec Trench, where it subducts under the Indo-Australian Plate as part of the Pacific Plate. The chain may have been formed by movement of the Pacific Plate over the Louisville hotspot or by leakage of magma from the shallow mantle up through the Eltanin fracture zone, which it follows closely.
Depth-sounding data first revealed the existence of the seamount chain in 1972.Seamounts
The Louisville Ridge includes the following:
- Burton Seamount
- Currituck Seamount
- Danseur Seamount
- Darvin Guyot
- Forde Seamount
- Louisville Seamount
- Osbourn Seamount
- Pierson Seamount
- Rumyantsev Seamount
- Seafox Seamount
- Trobriant Seamount
- Valerie Guyot
- Vostok Seamount
