The Timor Trough is an oceanic trough that is a continuation of the Sunda Trench (Java Trench) that marks the boundary between the

Indo-Australian Plate The Indo-Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes the continent of Australia and the surrounding ocean and extends northwest to include the Indian subcontinent and the adjacent waters. It was formed by the fusion of the Indian an ...

and the Timor Plate. It is separated from the Sunda Trench by a sag near

Sumba Island Sumba ( id, Pulau Sumba) is an island in eastern Indonesia. It is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands and is in the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Sumba has an area of , and the population was 779,049 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as at ...

at the Scott Plateau and the

North Australian Basin North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north' ...

, and on the other end becomes the Tanimbar Trough southeast of the Tanimbar Islands, continuing on to the Aru Trough east of the Kai Islands near the Bird's Head Peninsula on

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

. Lining the north of the trough are numerous islands, of which

Timor Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, ...

is the largest. Further west are the

Weber Basin Weber (, or ; German: ) is a surname of German origin, derived from the noun meaning " weaver". In some cases, following migration to English-speaking countries, it has been anglicised to the English surname 'Webber' or even 'Weaver'. Notable pe ...

and the

Banda Trench Banda may refer to: People *Banda (surname) * Banda Prakash (born 1954), Indian politician * Banda Kanakalingeshwara Rao (1907–1968), Indian actor * Banda Karthika Reddy (born 1977), Indian politician *Banda Singh Bahadur (1670–1716), Sikh w ...

. Oil and

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon d ...

have been found in the

Bonaparte Basin The Bonaparte Basin is a sedimentary basin in Western Australia and the Northern Territory of Australia. Its total area is approximately , most of which is offshore. The sedimentary basin emerges at the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf and extends int ...

south of the trough and the region is geologically active with numerous earthquakes.

References

Plate tectonics Geology of Indonesia {{tectonics-stub