The Amur plate (or Amurian plate; also occasionally referred to as the China plate, not to be confused with the

Yangtze plate The Yangtze plate, also called the South China block or the South China subplate, comprises the bulk of southern China. It is separated on the east from the Okinawa plate by a rift that forms the Okinawa Trough which is a back-arc basin, on the ...

) is a minor

tectonic plate Plate tectonics (, ) is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of , an idea developed durin ...

in the

northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating ...

and

eastern Eastern or Easterns may refer to: Transportation Airlines *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai * Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 192 ...

hemispheres. The Amurian Plate is named after the

Amur River The Amur River () or Heilong River ( zh, s=黑龙江) is a perennial river in Northeast Asia, forming the natural border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China (historically the Outer and Inner Manchuria). The Amur ''proper'' is ...

, which forms the border between the Russian Far East and

Northeast China Northeast China () is a geographical region of China, consisting officially of three provinces Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The heartland of the region is the Northeast China Plain, the largest plain in China with an area of over . The regi ...

. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Eurasian plate, on the east by the Okhotsk plate, to the southeast by the

Philippine Sea plate The Philippine Sea plate or the Philippine plate is a tectonic plate comprising oceanic lithosphere that lies beneath the Philippine Sea, to the east of the Philippines. Most segments of the Philippines, including northern Luzon, are part of ...

along the

Suruga Trough The is a trough that lies off the coast of Suruga Bay in Japan, forming part of the Nankai Trough, the latter being responsible the source of many large earthquakes in Japan's history. Both mark the boundary of the Philippine Sea Plate subducting ...

and the

Nankai Trough The is a submarine trough located south of the Nankaidō region of Japan's island of Honshu, extending approximately offshore. The underlying fault, the ''Nankai megathrust,'' is the source of the devastating Nankai megathrust earthquakes, ...

, and the Okinawa plate, and the

.Yu. F. Malyshev, et al. Deep structure of the Amur lithospheric Plate border zone. The Amurian Plate may have been involved in the

1975 Haicheng earthquake On February 4, 1975, at 19:36 Chinese Standard Time, CST, an earthquake of 7.5 and Modified Mercalli intensity scale, intensity (MMI) IX hit the city of Haicheng, Liaoning, China. Much of the city was evacuated before the earthquake, so few die ...

and the

1976 Tangshan earthquake The 1976 Tangshan earthquake () was a 7.6 earthquake that hit the region around Tangshan, Hebei, China, at 3:42 a.m. on 28 July 1976. The maximum intensity of the earthquake was XI (''Extreme'') on the Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli sca ...

in China.

Boundaries

The Amurian microplate is a division within the Eurasian plate, with an unknown western boundary, defined on the south by the Qinling suture zone in central China and the

Baikal Rift Zone The Baikal Rift Zone is a series of continental rifts centered beneath Lake Baikal in southeastern Russia. Current strain in the rifts tends to be extending with some shear movement. A series of basins form along the zone for more than , creatin ...

and

Stanovoy Mountains The Stanovoy Range (, ''Stanovoy khrebet''; ) is a mountain range located in the Sakha Republic and Amur Oblast, Far Eastern Federal District. It is also known as Sükebayatur and Sükhbaatar in Mongolian, or the Stanovoy Mountains or Outer K ...

on the north. The

is considered a boundary between the Amurian Plate and the Eurasian plate. GPS measurements indicate that the plate is slowly rotating counterclockwise. The boundary with the Okhotsk Plate is the

eastern margin of the Sea of Japan The eastern margin of the Sea of Japan is a zone of concentrated geological strain which extends several hundred kilometers and north–south along the eastern margin of the Sea of Japan. The margin has undergone convergence tectonics since the e ...

Geography

It covers northeastern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, the

Korean Peninsula Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically divided at or near the 38th parallel between North Korea (Dem ...

, the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it ...

Shikoku is the smallest of the List of islands of Japan#Main islands, four main islands of Japan. It is long and between at its widest. It has a population of 3.8 million, the least populated of Japan's four main islands. It is south of Honshu ...

Kyushu is the third-largest island of Japan's Japanese archipelago, four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa Island, Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Ryukyu Islands, Islands ...

, southwest

Honshu , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the list of islands by area, seventh-largest island in the world, and the list of islands by ...

(

Kansai The or the lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropoli ...

, Chūgoku), eastern

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

and the south of

Russian Far East The Russian Far East ( rus, Дальний Восток России, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in North Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asia, Asian continent, and is coextensive with the Far Easte ...

Boundaries

Geography

See also

References

Further reading