Tectonics of the Philippines
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An aerial photograph of Mt. Mayon, a stratovolcano formed by the subduction of the Philippine Plate. From: Dex Baldon (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mt._Mayon_aerial_photo.jpg)
Tectonics of the Philippines
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Welcome to the Tectonics of the Philippines website.
This website, created for EPSC 350 Tectonics at McGill University by Carla, Torie and Alex, seeks to investigate the tectonic configuration of the Philippines region using a diverse range of data sets and models in the literature. Furthermore, reconstructions and projections of tectonics will be considered, as well as the implications of the dynamic tectonics in this region of South East Asia. The project area considered here ranges North-South from the Ryukyu subduction zone in southern Japan to the Arafura Sea, and East-West from the Marianas Trench to the South China Sea. The Philippines itself is an accreted terrane that defines the boundary between the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea, in the center of the project area. The tectonics of this region is vastly complex. To the east, the Philippines is bordered by the Philippine Trench, formed by the subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate (PSP) beneath the Philippine Mobile Belt (Yumul et al., 2008). To the west, the Manila trench has formed from the subduction of the Sunda plate (a component of the Eurasian plate) beneath the Philippine Mobile Belt (Bautista et al., 2001). However, the stresses involved in subduction in this region are not fully accommodated by the aforementioned subduction zones. The sinistral (i.e. left-lateral) Philippine Fault Zone accommodates the lateral motion from the oblique subduction of the adjacent plates (Aurelio, 2000). To the north, the transition from subduction to continent-arc collision in Taiwan is dominant, along with the subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate along the Ryukyu Trench (Zheng et al., 2013). These among other tectonic configurations will be explored on this site. |