Seafloor beneath hot-spot-produced seamounts have crustal flow lines that intersect at the hot spot locations, provided there is more than one stage rotation and that hot spots are stationary. Convolving seamount shapes with their associated flow lines yields an image of cumulative volcano amplitude (CVA). We call the technique of correlating local CVA maxima with hot spot locations hot-spotting. This technique is geometrical and requires no age information for seamounts or seafloor. We analyze synthetic and actual seamount data and demonstrate that factors such as across-trail scatter in seamount locations, inaccurate stage poles, and migration of hot spots all exert strong influences on the locations and appearances of CVA maxima. The interpretation of raw CVA images is therefore not straightforward. ¿ 1998 American Geophysical Union