The Philippine Sea Plate or the Philippine Plate is a

tectonic plate 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 ...

comprising oceanic lithosphere that lies beneath the Philippine Sea, 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, as ...

, 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 A convergent boundary (also known as a destructive boundary) is an area on Earth where two or more lithospheric plates collide. One plate eventually slides beneath the other, a process known as subduction. The subduction zone can be defined by a ...

: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 is a submarine trough located south of the Nankaidō region of Japan's island of Honshu, extending approximately offshore. The underlying fault, the ''Nankai megathrust,'' is the source of the devastating Nankai megathrust earthquakes, w ...

. The Philippine Sea Plate, the Amurian Plate, and the Okhotsk Plate meet near Mount Fuji 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 Izu may refer to: Places *Izu Province, a part of modern-day Shizuoka prefecture in Japan **Izu, Shizuoka, a city in Shizuoka prefecture **Izu Peninsula, near Tokyo **Izu Islands, located off the Izu Peninsula People with the surname

*, Japane ...

– Ogasawara (Bonin) and the Mariana Islands, forming the

Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc The Izu–Bonin–Mariana (IBM) arc system is a tectonic plate convergent boundary in Micronesia. The IBM arc system extends over 2800 km south from Tokyo, Japan, to beyond Guam, and includes the Izu Islands, the Bonin Islands, and the Marian ...

system. There is also a divergent boundary between the Philippine Sea Plate and the small Mariana Plate which carries the Mariana Islands. To the east, the Pacific Plate subducts 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 nort ...

and the Nansei islands on the Okinawa Plate, and southern Japan on the Amurian Plate. It also meets the

Yangtze Plate The Yangtze Plate, also called the South China Block or the South China Subplate, comprises the bulk of southern China. It is separated on the east from the Okinawa Plate by a rift that forms the Okinawa Trough which is a back-arc basin, on the s ...

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