It features many coral-capped guyots and is one of the two parallel seamount chains alongside the east coast of Australia; the Lord Howe and Tasmantid seamount chains both run north-south through parts of the Coral Sea and Tasman Sea.

The two chains lie on opposite sides of the Dampier Ridge which is believed to be a submerged continental fragment, that is over 250 million years old, and had split from the Australian plate during Tasman Sea formation.

[8] It includes the officially named Nova Bank, Argo and Kelso seamounts, Capel and Gifford guyots, Middleton and Elizabeth reefs, Lord Howe Island and Ball's Pyramid.

The chain has now been characterised by compositional analysis to be related at 28 million years to the South Rennell Trough spreading center as its potential initiation point with lessening magma being erupted progressively as the younger seamounts of the hot spot were formed.

[1][10] On the Australian mainland, a third north-south sequence of extinct volcanoes (which includes the Glass House Mountains) is likely to have the same origin.