Most people know about the major tectonic plates of the world, mostly corresponding to whole continents. But there are little plates too, ones slinking along. Thailand is on one little plate, the Sunda plate. This little plate rests in between four three plates, the Eurasian, Australian, and the Philippine.
Red lines indicate a divergent boundary, green a transform fault, purple a convergent boundary, and blue with arrows a subduction zone. As you can see, the Australian and the Philippine plates are sliding underneath the Sunda plate, pushing it upwards. The Burma plate is moving away from Thailand, but shrinking from India pushing in.
Thankfully, Thailand is far enough away from the Australian plate to avoid volcanoes. Phew. That is a big relief.
Pictures taken from Google Images. Sources are from previous Geology classes, and the legend of the plate map.
Very nice entry Alynna, that map with the different types of boundaries surrounding the Sunda plate is excellent. It really visualizes how complicated tectonics can get with so many plates in close proximity.
ReplyDeleteI have been lucky to have been offshore in that part of the world and the geology is very complex, result of that complicated tectonic setting!
ReplyDeleteAlynna, make sure you add your references/links (for the text) so we all know where your information comes from.
Very interesting! I am pleased to learn how a few of Earth's plates intercollide. I realized that my country, Singapore, also lies within the Sunda Plate. It is located near the Sunda Arc, an arc of volcanoes that were formed by the subduction zone!
ReplyDeleteAlynna,
ReplyDeleteYou gave us nice picture of tectonic plates and a couple of small other plates, but just out of my curiosity what kind of disaster do they face the most in Thailand?
You gave a very detail of tectonic plates and I like how your picture shows all those details.
ReplyDeleteYou gave a very detail of tectonic plates and I like how your picture shows all those details.
ReplyDelete