The Moa Plate was an ancient
oceanic plate
Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of the tectonic plates. It is composed of the upper oceanic crust, with pillow lavas and a dike complex, and the lower oceanic crust, composed of troctolite, gabbro and ultramafic c ...
that formed in the
Early Cretaceous south of the
Pacific–Phoenix Ridge. The Moa Plate was obliquely
subduct
Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...
ed beneath the
Gondwana margin, and material accreted from it is now part of the Eastern Province of
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. The plate was named in 2001 by
Rupert Sutherland and Chris Hollis.
References
Tectonic plates
Historical tectonic plates
Historical geology
Mesozoic geology
Geology of New Zealand
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