South Bismarck Plate

South Bismarck Plate
Type	Minor
Movement1	north-east
Speed1	26mm/year
Features	Pacific Ocean
1Relative to the African Plate

The South Bismarck Plate is a small tectonic plate located in the southern Bismarck Sea. The eastern part of New Guinea and the island of New Britain are on this plate.

Tectonics

Convergent boundarys line the southern border including the subduction zone responsible for the formation of New Britain and the Solomon Islands. Many earthquakes occur in this area particularly around New Britain. GPS data shows the South Bismarck plate, though north of the Australian plate boundary, is being pushed by Australia in a northerly direction while the North Bismarck Plate is being dragged by the Pacific plate easterly.^[1] The line delineating the two is called the Bismarck Seismic Sea Lineation (BSSL), and it is not known where this line ends on the West side towards New Ireland.^[1]

See also

• List of earthquakes in Papua New Guinea

References

Sources

Tectonic plates
Major	African Indo-Australian Plate Antarctic Eurasian North American Pacific South American
Minor	Arabian Caribbean Cocos Juan de Fuca Nazca Philippine Scotia
Other	Adriatic Aegean Sea Amurian Anatolian Australian Balmoral Reef Banda Sea Bird's Head Burma Capricorn Caroline Conway Reef Easter Explorer Falklands Futuna Galapagos Gonâve Gorda Greenland Halmahera Iberian Indian 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 Sunda Timor Tisza Tonga Woodlark Yangtze
Historical	Baltic Bellingshausen Charcot Cimmeria Farallon Insular Intermontane Izanagi Lhasa Malvinas Moa Phoenix
List of tectonic plates