The Moa Plate was an ancient

oceanic plate 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 c ...

that formed in the Early Cretaceous south of the Pacific–Phoenix Ridge. The Moa Plate was obliquely

subduct Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...

ed beneath the Gondwana margin, and material accreted from it is now part of the Eastern Province of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. The plate was named in 2001 by Rupert Sutherland and Chris Hollis.

References

Tectonic plates Historical tectonic plates Historical geology Mesozoic geology Geology of New Zealand {{palaeo-geo-stub