Bird's Head Plate

Small tectonic plate in New Guinea

Bird's Head Plate

Type	Minor
Movement¹	north-west
Speed¹	92mm/year
Features	Bird's Head Peninsula, Pacific Ocean
¹Relative to the African Plate

The Bird's Head Plate is a minor tectonic plate incorporating the Bird's Head Peninsula, at the western end of the island of New Guinea. Hillis and Müller consider it to be moving in unison with the Pacific Plate.^[1] Bird considers it to be unconnected to the Pacific Plate.^[2]

The plate is separating from the Australian Plate and the small Maoke Plate along a divergent boundary to the southeast. Convergent boundaries exist along the north, between the Bird's Head and the Caroline Plate, the Philippine Sea Plate and the Halmahera Plate to the northwest. A transform boundary exists between the Bird's Head and the Molucca Sea Collision Zone to the southwest. Another convergent boundary exists between the Bird's Head and the Banda Sea Plate to the south.^[3]

References

^ Hillis, R. R.; Müller, R. D. (2003). Evolution and Dynamics of the Australian Plate. Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America. p. 363. ISBN 0-8137-2372-8.
^ Bird, P. (2003). "An updated digital model of plate boundaries". Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 4 (3): 1027. doi:10.1029/2001GC000252. http://peterbird.name/publications/2003_PB2002/2003_PB2002.htm.
^ https://reliefweb.int/attachments/38407cb4-7c1b-3dda-a321-10b9cd4a58a7/20041126.pdf USGS: Papua, Indonesia Earthquake of 26 November 2004

Tectonic plates

Ancient oceanic ridges

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Tectonic plates of Southeast Asia–New Guinea (Australian Plate–Pacific Plate Convergence Zone)

Large

Small

West	Burma Plate
Philippines	Philippine Mobile Belt
Indonesia	Banda Sea Plate Bird's Head Plate Halmahera Plate Molucca Sea Collision Zone Molucca Sea Plate Sangihe Plate Timor Plate
New Guinea	Maoke Plate North Bismarck Plate Manus Plate Solomon Sea Plate South Bismarck Plate Trobriand Plate Woodlark Plate

Faults

Trenches
and troughs

Java Trench (Sunda) with Mentawai Trough Sunda Trough Timor Trough
Philippines	Cotabato Trench Manila Trench North Luzon Trough Negros Trench Palawan Trench Philippine Trench East Luzon Trench Sulu Trench
Sulawesi and Moluccas	Aru Trough Banda Trench Ceram Trough Salajar Trough Sangihe Trough Talaud Trough Ternate Trough
Timor	Aur Trough Tanimbar Trough
New Guinea	Ayu Trough Kilinailau Trench Manokwari Trough Lyra Trough Mussau Trough New Guinea Trench Pocklington Trough New Britain Trench (Bougainville) West Caroline Trough West Melanesian Trench