The Pacific Plate is moving roughly to the northwest. You can see the motion of the plate in the Hawaiian Islands. The islands were formed by a hotspot (a place where magma flows to the surface) that is pretty stationary. As the Pacific plate moves across the hotspot, the chain of islands and seamounts has been created. So, the older islands (like Kauai) are to the west and the younger ones (like Hawaii) are to the east. To visualize this, you can hold your finger under your palm and move your palm to the “northwest”. Your finger will trace a line, just like the Hawaiian archipelago!

 

There is a pretty slick animation of the motion of the Pacific plate at:

http://www.geol.ucsb.edu/~atwater/Animations/Pacificmovie-preview.html

(watch the dark blue patch).

 

If you want more information on Hawai’i in particular, there is information at the Hawai’i Center for Vulcanology:

http://www.soe st.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_formation.html

And at this USGS web site:

http://pubs.usg s.gov/publications/text/Hawaiian.html