On November 15, 2014, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake occurred northwest of Kota Ternate, Indonesia, within the shallow oceanic crust of the Sunda plate, in the complex plate boundary region of eastern Indonesia, about 300 km to the west of the major plate boundary structure between the Sunda and the Pacific plates.The fracture mechanism of this event indicates that it coincides with the general trend of earthquakes in the area, forming an inverse fault structure, either tilting to the northwest or gently to the southeast.
Tectonics in the eastern Indonesia are extremely complex, and they are dominated by the mostly convergent interactions of the Pacific, Australia, Philippine Sea and Sunda Plates, with some authors labeling the most proximate edge of the The Pacific Plate, as a separate tectonic block, is called Caroline Plate. The edges of the Sunda and the Australia plates are also often subdivided into smaller tectonic blocks, including the Molucca Sea and Birds Head microplates immediately to the south and east of the November 2014 earthquake, respectively. In this context, the November 2014 event most closely aligns with the boundary between the broader Sunda Plate and the Birds Head microplate. In depth beneath this earthquake and the Molucca Sea in general, the inverted-U-shaped Halmahera Plate, which has no surface expression, also plays a role in regional tectonics.
Comment list ( 0 )
