Mariana Plate

Map of the Mariana Plate (as "Mariannes") and its neighbouring plates (in French)

Cross section across the Mariana Plate

The Mariana Plate is a small tectonic plate located west of the Mariana Trench and forms the basement of the Mariana Islands. It is separated from the Philippine Sea Plate by a long divergent boundary with numerous transform fault offsets. The boundary between the Mariana and the Pacific Plate to the east is a subduction zone with the Pacific Plate subducting beneath the Mariana. The Mariana Trench forms the southeastern boundary and the Izu-Ogasawara Trench the northeastern boundary.^[1]

The Mariana Islands earthquake of October 31, 2007 was a deep earthquake. It had a magnitude of 7.4 and occurred at 21.980° N. Lat. and 142.685° E. Long. at a depth of 261 km.^[2]

References

Tectonic plates Major African Australian Antarctic Eurasian Indian North American Pacific South American Minor Arabian Caribbean Cocos Juan de Fuca Nazca Philippine Scotia Other Adriatic Aegean Sea Altiplano Amurian Anatolian Balmoral Reef Banda Sea Bird's Head Burma Capricorn Caroline Conway Reef Easter Explorer Falklands Futuna Galapagos Gonâve Gorda Greenland Halmahera Iberian Iranian Juan Fernández Kerguelen Kermadec Kula Madagascar Manus Maoke Mariana Molucca Sea New Hebrides Niuafo'ou North Andes North Bismarck North Galapagos Nubian Okhotsk Okinawa Panama Pelso Philippine Mobile Belt Rivera Sangihe Seychelles Shetland Solomon Sea Somali South Bismarck South Sandwich Sri Lanka Sunda Timor Tisza Tonga Woodlark Yangtze Historical Baltic Bellingshausen Charcot Cimmerian Farallon Indo-Australian Insular Intermontane Izanagi Lhasa Moa Phoenix List of tectonic plates