The Conway Reef plate is a small

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 ...

( microplate) located in the south

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

west of

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

. The western boundary is with the New Hebrides plate while the eastern is with the Australian plate. A short transform boundary also exists with the Balmoral Reef plate. Much of the plate underlies the south central portion of the North Fiji Basin. Within the North Fiji Basin it lies between the spreading centers of the Central Spreading Ridge on the west and the West Fiji Ridge on the east. The plate is rotating counterclockwise with respect to all of its neighbours. The plate's existence was first modelled in 2003 by Bird. Its boundaries and

angular momentum Angular momentum (sometimes called moment of momentum or rotational momentum) is the rotational analog of Momentum, linear momentum. It is an important physical quantity because it is a Conservation law, conserved quantity – the total ang ...

were further defined in 2011 and 2018 with refinement of

deformation and strain rate. The region is complex and may well have several other microplates or blocks.

References

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* * * * * {{Tectonic plates Tectonic plates Geology of the Pacific Ocean

See also

References

Sources