Everything about The Indo-australian Plate totally explained
The
Indo-Australian Plate is a major
tectonic plate that includes the
continent of Australia and surrounding
ocean, and extends northwest to include the
Indian subcontinent and adjacent waters. Recent studies suggest that the Indo-Australian Plate may be in the process of breaking up into two separate plates due primarily to stresses induced by the collision of the Indo-Australian Plate with Eurasia along the Himalayas. The two protoplates or subplates are generally referred to as the
India Plate and the
Australian Plate.
Depositional age of the Mount Barren Group on the southern margin of the
Yilgarn Craton and
zircon provenance analysis support the hypothesis that collisions between the
Pilbara–
Yilgarn and
Yilgarn–
Gawler Cratons assembled a proto-Australian continent approximately 1696±7 Ma (Dawson et al. 2002).
India,
Meganesia (
Australia,
New Guinea, and
Tasmania),
New Zealand, and
New Caledonia are all fragments of the ancient supercontinent of
Gondwana.
Seafloor spreading separated these land masses from one another, but as the spreading centers became inactive they fused into a single plate.
Recent
GPS measurement in Australia confirms the plate's movement as being 35 degrees east of north with a velocity of 67 mm/yr. Note also the same directions and velocities for points at
Auckland,
Christmas Island and southern India. The slight change in direction at Auckland is presumably due to a slight buckling of the plate there, where it's being compressed by the
Pacific Plate.
The southeasterly side is a complex but generally
convergent boundary with the Pacific Plate. The Pacific Plate subducting under the Australian Plate forms the
Tonga and
Kermadec Trenches, and the parallel
Tonga and
Kermadec island arcs. It has also uplifted the eastern parts of New Zealand's
North Island. The continent of
Zealandia, which separated from Australia 85 million years ago and stretches from
New Caledonia in the north to
New Zealand's subantarctic islands in the south, is now being torn apart along the
transform boundary marked by the
Alpine Fault. South of New Zealand the boundary becomes a transitional transform-convergent boundary, the
Macquarie Fault Zone, where the Australian Plate is beginning to subduct under the Pacific Plate along the
Puysegur Trench. Extending southwest of this trench is the
Macquarie Ridge.
The southerly side is a
divergent boundary with the
Antarctic Plate called the
Southeast Indian Ridge (SEIR). The westerly side is a transform boundary with the
Arabian Plate called the
Owen Fracture Zone, and a divergent boundary with the
African Plate called the
Central Indian Ridge (CIR). The northerly side of the Indo-Australian Plate is a convergent boundary with the
Eurasian Plate forming the
Himalaya and
Hindu Kush mountains.
The northeast side of the Indo-Australian plate forms a
subducting boundary with the Eurasian plate on the borders of the
Indian Ocean from
Bangladesh, to
Myanmar (formerly Burma) to the south-west of
Indonesian islands of
Sumatra and
Borneo. The subducting boundary through Indonesia isn't parallel to the
biogeographical Wallace line that separates the indigenous fauna of Asia from that of
Australasia: the Eastern islands of Indonesia lie mainly on the
Eurasian Plate, but have Australasian-related fauna and flora.
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