The Philippine Sea Plate or the Philippine Plate is a tectonic plate comprising oceanic

lithosphere A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of up to thousands of years ...

that lies beneath the

Philippine Sea The Philippine Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean east of the Philippine archipelago (hence the name), the largest in the world, occupying an estimated surface area of . The Philippine Sea Plate forms the floor of the sea. Its ...

, to the east of the Philippines. Most segments of the Philippines, including northern

Luzon Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, ...

, are part of the Philippine Mobile Belt, which is geologically and tectonically separate from the Philippine Sea Plate. The plate is bordered mostly by convergent boundaries:Smoczyk, G.M., Hayes, G.P., Hamburger, M.W., Benz, H.M., Villaseñor, Antonio, and Furlong, K.P., 2013
Seismicity of the Earth 1900–2012 Philippine Sea Plate and vicinity
U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2010–1083-M, scale 1:10,000,000, ''https://dx.doi.org/10.3133/ofr20101083m''. To the north, the Philippine Sea Plate meets the Okhotsk Plate at the Nankai Trough. The Philippine Sea Plate, the Amurian Plate, and the Okhotsk Plate meet near

Mount Fuji , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highes ...

in Japan. The thickened crust of the Izu–Bonin–Mariana arc colliding with Japan constitutes the Izu Collision Zone. The east of the plate includes the Izu– Ogasawara (Bonin) and the Mariana Islands, forming the Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc system. There is also a

divergent boundary In plate tectonics, a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary (also known as a constructive boundary or an extensional boundary) is a linear feature that exists between two tectonic plates that are moving away from each other. Divergent ...

between the Philippine Sea Plate and the small Mariana Plate which carries the Mariana Islands. To the east, the

Pacific Plate The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At , it is the largest tectonic plate. The plate first came into existence 190 million years ago, at the triple junction between the Farallon, Phoenix, and I ...

subducts 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 ...

beneath the Philippine Sea Plate at the Izu–Ogasawara Trench. To the south, the Philippine Sea Plate is bounded by the Caroline Plate and Bird's Head Plate. To the west, the Philippine Sea Plate subducts under the Philippine Mobile Belt at the Philippine Trench and the East Luzon Trench. (The adjacent rendition of Prof. Peter Bird's map is inaccurate in this respect.) To the northwest, the Philippine Sea Plate meets

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...

and the Nansei islands on the Okinawa Plate, and southern Japan on the Amurian Plate. It also meets the Yangtze Plate due northwest. Map00148 (28286522445)

References

External links

* High-resolution map o
Tectonic Plate Boundaries
* Map showin
Seismicity of the Earth, 1900‒2012: Philippine Sea Plate and Vicinity

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

Tectonic plates Natural history of Oceania Natural history of the Philippines Natural history of Taiwan Natural history of Japan Environment of Micronesia Philippine Sea Geology of the Philippines Geology of the Pacific Ocean {{tectonics-stub

See also

References

External links