Pacific Plate

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Pacific Plate

The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate

Tectonic Plate

#REDIRECT Plate tectonics...
beneath the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan....
.

To the north the easterly side is a divergent boundary

Divergent boundary

In plate tectonics, a divergent boundary or divergent plate boundary is a linear feature that exists between two List of tectonic plates that are moving away from each other....
with the Explorer Plate

Explorer Plate

The Explorer Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada.To the east, the Explorer Plate is being subduction under the North American Plate....
, the Juan de Fuca Plate

Juan de Fuca Plate

The Juan de Fuca Plate, named after the Juan de Fuca, is a tectonic plate arising from the Juan de Fuca Ridge, and subduction under the northerly portion of the western side of the North American Plate at the Cascadia subduction zone....
and the Gorda Plate

Gorda Plate

The Gorda Plate, located beneath the Pacific Ocean off the coast of northern California, is one of the northern remnants of the Farallon Plate. It is sometimes referred to as simply the southernmost portion of the neighboring Juan de Fuca Plate, another Farallon remnant....
forming respectively the Explorer Ridge

Explorer Ridge

The Explorer Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge, a divergent plate tectonics boundary located about west of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada....
, the Juan de Fuca Ridge

Juan de Fuca Ridge

The Juan de Fuca Ridge is a tectonic divergent boundary located off the coasts of the state of Washington in the United States and the province of British Columbia in Canada....
and the Gorda Ridge

Gorda Ridge

The Gorda Ridge is a tectonic divergent boundary located off the coast of Oregon and northern California north of Cape Mendocino. It runs from a triple junction with the San Andreas Fault and the Mendocino Fracture Zone northward to another transform boundary, the Blanco Fracture Zone....
. In the middle the easterly side is a transform boundary with the North American Plate

North American Plate

The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Greenland and part of Siberia. It extends eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and westward to the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia....
along the San Andreas Fault

San Andreas Fault

The San Andreas Fault is a geologic transform fault that runs a length of roughly 800 miles through California in the United States. The fault's motion is dextral strike-slip ....
and a boundary with the Cocos Plate

Cocos Plate

The Cocos Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America, named for Cocos Island, which rides upon it....
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The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate

Tectonic Plate

#REDIRECT Plate tectonics...
beneath the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

Divergent boundary

Explorer Plate

Juan de Fuca Plate

Gorda Plate

Explorer Ridge

The Explorer Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge, a divergent plate tectonics boundary located about west of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada....
, the Juan de Fuca Ridge

Juan de Fuca Ridge

Gorda Ridge

North American Plate

San Andreas Fault

Cocos Plate

The Cocos Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America, named for Cocos Island, which rides upon it....
. To the south the easterly side is a divergent boundary

Divergent boundary

Nazca Plate

The Nazca Plate, named after the Nazca region of southern Peru, is an oceanic tectonic plate in the eastern Pacific Ocean basin off the west coast of South America....
forming the East Pacific Rise

East Pacific Rise

The East Pacific Rise is a mid-oceanic ridge, a divergent tectonic plate boundary located along the floor of the Pacific Ocean. It separates the Pacific Plate to the west from the North American Plate, the Rivera Plate, the Cocos Plate, the Nazca Plate, and the Antarctic Plate....
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The southerly side is a divergent boundary

Divergent boundary

Antarctic Plate

The Antarctic Plate is a tectonic plate covering the continent of Antarctica and extending outward under the surrounding oceans. The Antarctic Plate has a boundary with the Nazca Plate, the South American Plate, the African Plate, the Indo-Australian Plate, the Scotia Plate and a divergent boundary with the Pacific Plate forming the Pacific...
forming the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge

Pacific-Antarctic Ridge

The Pacific-Antarctic Ridge is a divergent tectonics plate boundary located on the seafloor of the South Pacific Ocean, separating the Pacific Plate from the Antarctic Plate....
.

The westerly side is a convergent boundary

Convergent boundary

In plate tectonics, a convergent boundary or convergent plate boundary, also known as a destructive plate boundary , is an actively deforming region where two tectonic plates or fragments of lithosphere move toward one another and collide....
subducting under the Eurasian Plate

Eurasian Plate

The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate which includes most of the continent of Eurasia , with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent, and the area east of the Chersky Range in East Siberia....
to the north and the Philippine Plate

Philippine Plate

File:Philippine Sea plate.JPGThe Philippine Sea Plate is a tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean to the east of the Philippines. The Philippine Sea Plate comprises oceanic lithosphere that lies beneath the Philippine Sea, and so has been referred to in the scientific literature of the last 50 years as the Philippine Sea Plate....
in the middle forming the Mariana Trench

Mariana Trench

The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the world's oceans, and the deepest location on the surface of the Earth's Crust . It has a maximum depth of about 10,911 meters , and is located in the western North Pacific Ocean, to the east and south of the Mariana Islands, near Guam....
. In the south, the Pacific Plate has a complex but generally convergent boundary with the Indo-Australian Plate

Indo-Australian Plate

The Indo-Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes the Australia and surrounding ocean, and extends northwest to include the Indian subcontinent and adjacent waters....
, subducting under it north of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
forming the Tonga Trench

Tonga Trench

The Tonga Trench is located in the Pacific Ocean and is 10,882 meters deep at its deepest point, known as the Horizon Deep.The trench lies at the northern end of the Kermadec-Tonga Subduction Zone, an active subduction zone where the Pacific Plate is being subduction zone below the Tonga Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate....
and the Kermadec Trench

Kermadec Trench

The Kermadec trench is one of Earth's deepest oceanic trenches, reaching a depth of 10,047 m. Formed by the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Indo-Australian Plate, it runs over a thousand kilometres parallel with and to the east of the Kermadec Ridge and island arc, from near the northeastern tip of New Zealand's North Island to the...
. The Alpine Fault

Alpine Fault

The Alpine Fault is a geological fault, known as a right-lateral strike-slip fault, that runs almost the entire length of New Zealand's South Island....
marks a transform boundary between the two plates, and further south the Indo-Australian Plate subducts under the Pacific Plate forming the Puysegur Trench

Puysegur trench

The 6,000 m deep Puysegur Trench is formed by the subduction of the Australian plate under the Pacific plate to the south of New Zealand. The Puysegur trench mirrors the Kermadec Trench and Tonga Trench north of New Zealand....
. The part of Zealandia

Zealandia (continent)

Zealandia , also known as Tasmantis or the New Zealand continent, is a nearly submerged continent or microcontinent that sank after breaking away from Antarctica between 85 and 130 million years ago, and then from Australia 60-85 million years ago....
to the east of this boundary is the plate's largest block of continental crust.

The northerly side is a convergent boundary

Convergent boundary

North American Plate

Aleutian Trench

The Aleutian Trench is a subduction zone and oceanic trench which runs along the southern coastline of Alaska and the adjacent waters of northeastern Siberia off the coast of Kamchatka Peninsula....
and the corresponding Aleutian Islands

Aleutian Islands

The Aleutian Islands are a chain of more than 300 small volcanic islands forming a volcanic arc in the Northern Pacific Ocean, occupying an area of 6,821 sq mi and extending about 1,200 mi westward from the Alaska Peninsula toward the Kamchatka Peninsula....
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The Pacific Plate contains an interior hot spot

Hotspot (geology)

In geology, a hotspot is a location on the Earth's surface that has experienced active volcano for a long period of time. J. Tuzo Wilson came up with the idea in 1963 that volcanic chains like the Hawaiian Islands result from the slow movement of a tectonic plate across a "fixed" hot spot deep beneath the surface of the planet....
forming the Hawaiian Islands

Hawaiian Islands

The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of 19 islands and atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll....
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It is believed that the Pacific Plate is moving in unison with the minor, Bird's Head Plate

Bird's Head Plate

The Bird's Head Plate is a minor tectonic plate under the western end of the island of New Guinea which is now believed to be moving in unison with the Pacific Plate....
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Paleo-geology of the Pacific Plate

The Pacific Plate has the distinction of showing one of the largest areal sections of the oldest members of seabed geology being entrenched into eastern Asian oceanic trench

Oceanic trench

The oceanic trenches are hemispheric-scale long but narrow topographic depressions of the sea floor. They are also the deepest parts of the ocean floor....
es. A geologic map of the Pacific Ocean seabed shows not only the geologic sequences, and associated Ring of Fire

Ring of Fire

Ring of Fire can refer to:...
zones on the ocean's perimeters, but the various ages of the seafloor in a stair-step fashion, youngest to oldest, the oldest being consumed into the Asian oceanic trenches. The oldest member disappearing by way of the Plate Tectonics

Plate tectonics

Plate tectonics describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere. The theory encompasses the older concepts of continental drift, developed during the first decades of the 20th century by Alfred Wegener, and seafloor spreading, understood during the 1960s....
cycle is early-Cretaceous

Cretaceous

The Cretaceous , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide, is a geologic period from circa to million years ago . In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows on the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period....
(145 to 137 my BP).

All maps of Earth's ocean floor geology show ages younger than 145 my BP, only about 1/40 of the Earth's 4.55 bya history.

Pacific Plate

Paleo-geology of the Pacific Plate

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