The Malpelo Plate is a
small tectonic plate (microplate) located off the coasts west of
Ecuador
Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...
and
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
. It is the 57th plate to be identified. It is named after
Malpelo Island
Malpelo is a small oceanic island in the eastern Pacific Ocean, located about west of the Colombian mainland with a military post manned by the Colombian Armed Forces. It consists of a sheer and barren rock with three high peaks, the highest ...
, the only emerged part of the plate. It is bounded on the west by the
Cocos Plate
The Cocos Plate is a young oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America, named for Cocos Island, which rides upon it. The Cocos Plate was created approximately 23 million years ago when the Farallon Plate ...
, on the south by the
Nazca Plate, on the east by the
North Andes Plate, and on the north by the
Coiba Plate
The Coiba Plate is a small tectonic plate (microplate) located off the coasts south of Panama and northwestern Colombia. It is named after Coiba, the largest island of Central America, just north of the plate offshore southern Panama. It is bo ...
, separated by the
Coiba Transform Fault (CTF). This microplate was previously assumed to be part of the Nazca Plate. The Malpelo Plate borders three major faults of Pacific Colombia, the north to south
striking Bahía Solano Fault in the north and the
Naya-Micay and
Remolino-El Charco Faults in the south.
Description
The Malpelo Plate was identified by a non-closure of the Nazca-Cocos-Pacific plate motion circuit, reported by
Tuo Zhang and lead-researcher
Richard G. Gordon et al. of
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...
in a paper published in August 2017.
[Zhang et al., 2017] The existence of the plate has been hypothesised before.
[Herrera Cala, 2013, p.69] The formation of the
oceanic crust
Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of the tectonic plates. It is composed of the upper oceanic crust, with pillow lavas and a dike complex, and the lower oceanic crust, composed of troctolite, gabbro and ultramafic cumu ...
of the plate has been estimated to be since the
Middle Miocene
The Middle Miocene is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages: the Langhian and Serravallian stages. The Middle Miocene is preceded by the Early Miocene.
The sub-epoch lasted from 15.97 ± 0.05 Ma to 11.608 ± 0.005 Ma (million y ...
(14.7 Ma).
[Meschede & Barckhausen, 2000, p.4]
The researchers used a
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
database of multibeam
sonar
Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigation, navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect o ...
soundings west of Ecuador and Colombia to identify a diffuse
plate boundary
Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large te ...
that runs from the
Panama Transform Fault (PTF) eastward to where the boundary intersects a deep
oceanic trench
Oceanic trenches are prominent long, narrow topographic depressions of the ocean floor. They are typically wide and below the level of the surrounding oceanic floor, but can be thousands of kilometers in length. There are about of oceanic tren ...
just offshore of the South American coast, north of the
Galapagos Islands.
[
]
Gallery
File:NazcaPlate.png, Former plate boundaries in the Pacific, offshore western South America
File:Mapa de Amenaza Sísmica de Colombia.png, Seismic activity map of Colombia
File:IslaMalpelo.png, Map of Malpelo Island, namesake of the plate
File:Malpelo island NOAA.jpg, Malpelo Island, the only emerged section of the plate
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
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External links
Map of the Malpelo Plate
{{Tectonism in Colombia, state=expanded
Tectonic plates
Geology of Colombia
Geology of Ecuador
Geology of the Pacific Ocean
Geography of Chocó Department
Geography of Valle del Cauca Department
Geography of Nariño Department
Geography of Esmeraldas Province
Geography of Manabí Province