Moluccan Sea
The Molucca Sea , also Maluku Sea ( Indonesian according to Maluku ), is a sea on the edge of the West Pacific , right on the equator .
geography
The sea borders in the northwest on the Celebes Sea, in the west on the Gulf of Tomini , in the south on the Seram Sea and in the east on the Halmahera Sea .
The Moluccan Sea is delimited by the Moluccas Islands Halmahera in the east and the Sula Islands in the south, by Sulawesi and the Sangihe Islands in the west and the Talaud Islands in the north. In the middle of the Molucca Sea are the small islands of Gureda and Maju . All of these islands belong to Indonesia .
There are numerous dive sites in the Molucca Sea, for example in Lembeh Strait .
Tectonic activity
The Halmahera Arch in the east of the sea, which includes volcanic islands off the west coast of Halmahera, and the Sangihe Arch in the west of the sea, which includes the Sangihe Islands and volcanoes on the Minahasa Peninsula in northeast Sulawesi, form a intertwined system of tectonically active zones, which often lead to strong earthquakes and seaquakes as well as volcanic eruptions. Various theories and models try to explain the tectonic structure of the Moluccan Sea.
According to Peter Bird, there is a Molucca Sea Plate, a small lithospheric plate that extends over the southern part of the Molucca Sea, the Ceram Sea, the north of Sulawesi as well as the Sula Islands , Seram and Buru . According to this theory, the Sangihe arch is created by subduction of the bird's head plate under the Sunda plate . The northern half of the Molucca Sea is part of the Vogelkopfplatte. The Moluccan Sea Plate ends south of the volcanic arc, but in turn also subducts under the Sunda Plate in the north of Sulawesi. However, the theory does not explain the existence of the Halmahera Arch.
Other scientists use a model of the Moluccan Sea collision zone. According to this model, the Moluccas plate also exists, but extends to the north of the Talaud Islands. It subducts under the Sunda plate in the west and under the bird's head plate in the east. Only in the middle of the Molucca Sea is material from the Molucca plate still to be found on the surface, the majority of the plate is already subducted. The Moluccan Sea is the only place in the world where two parallel subduction zones collide. According to this model, the two volcanic arches also form microplates, the Sangiheplatte in the west and the Halmaheraplatte in the east. The collision zone merges into the Philippine Mobile Belt in the north .
The last volcanic eruption on the Moluccan Sea occurred in August 2010 when the Karangetang erupted on the island of Siau, which is part of the Sangihe Arch . Stronger earthquakes (from 7.0 on the moment magnitude scale ) last occurred on November 29, 1998 (7.7), May 4, 2000 (7.6), February 24, 2001 (7.1), 21 January 2007 (7.5), February 12, 2009 (7.2) and November 15, 2014 (7.1).
Individual evidence
- ^ Peter Bird, 2003. An updated digital model of plate boundaries. in: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 4 (3) : p. 1027ff.
- ^ CG Macpherson, EJ Forde, R. Hall and MF Thirlwall: Geochemical evolution of magmatism in an arc-arc collision: the Halmahera and Sangihe arcs, eastern Indonesia. In RD Larter, PT Leat (Ed.): Intra-Oceanic Subduction Systems: Tectonic and Magmatic Processes. Geological Society, Special Publication 219. Geological Society Publishing House, Bath 2003, ISBN 1-86239-147-5 , pp. 207-220
- ↑ Information from the United States Geological Survey ( Memento of the original from September 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ information of GEOFON program of the GFZ Potsdam
Coordinates: 0 ° S , 125 ° E