Made by: Pier-Alexandre Pare
Tonga, Kermadec, Niuafo'Ou
The history of these three plates is fairly short, the group of plates was created about 5-6 Ma ago. As of now the plates are moving at different speeds. The Tonga plate is moving at 118mm/yr eastward relative to the African plate. The other two, Niuafo'ou and Kermadec are roughly co-linear, and are travelling at 60 and 42 mm/yr respectively. (Bird,
2003)
The future of the plates will be highly dependent on the rate of seafloor spreading. In the even that the spreading center slows down like several some plates have done in the South West pacific, (Van der Linden, 1969), then the plate could just fuse back with the Australian plate as the New Zealand part of the Australian plate come North. However in the even that the plate keep drifting in the Pacific ocean, then you could potentially get an island arc in the middle of the ocean, similar to the Marianas islands.
The future of the plates will be highly dependent on the rate of seafloor spreading. In the even that the spreading center slows down like several some plates have done in the South West pacific, (Van der Linden, 1969), then the plate could just fuse back with the Australian plate as the New Zealand part of the Australian plate come North. However in the even that the plate keep drifting in the Pacific ocean, then you could potentially get an island arc in the middle of the ocean, similar to the Marianas islands.
New zealands
The Northern Island of New Zealands is separated between the Kermadec Plate and the Australian Plate; While the Southern Island is cut in half by a transform fault separating the Australian plate from the Pacific Plate.
The Nature of the boundary between the Australian plate and the Kermadec plate changes on the North Island. Beneath the western part of New Zealand, the Australian plate is getting subducted plunging eastward. And on the Eastern side, the Pacific Plate is subducting, plunging westward, under New Zealands, and the Transform zone the cuts through New Zealand is the only things that separate the two subduction. It is likely that in the future, New Zealands will get stretched along the transform fault, the Southern tip of the island may move further south as the transform zone slowly rotate to align its strike slightly more N-S. Because of the rotation of the Kermadec plate, the Northern Island will get stretched as well while the Northwestern tip will lag behind. Although this is but a theory, this seems to be the general motion New Zealand and models, (Wood and Stagpoole, 2007)(see image below),seems to agree with that. |
Australia
Australia is an old craton that is slowly moving northward relative to the African plate, (Bird, 2003). Generally it is moving at a rate of 70mm/yr. Looking at the image below, (All the arrow represent motion relative to the African plate). Southeast Asia seems to be moving slightly Eastward and the Australian plate is moving mostly Northwards. Therefore it is a possibility that the Australia collide with southeast Asian a similar fashion to India is doing in central Asia.
Source:
Bird, P.: An updated digital model of plate boundaries: UPDATED MODEL OF PLATE BOUNDARIES, Geochem. Geophys. Geosystems, 4(3), 1027–1079, doi:10.1029/2001GC000252, 2003.
Van der Linden, W. J. M.: Extinct mid-ocean ridges in the Tasman sea and in the Western Pacific, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 6(6), 483–490, doi:10.1016/0012-821X(69)90120-4, 1969.
Wood, R. A. and Stagpoole, V. M.: Validation of tectonic reconstructions by crustal volume balance: New Zealand through the Cenozoic, Geol. Soc. Am. Bull., 119(7-8), 933–943, doi:10.1130/B26018.1, 2007.
Bird, P.: An updated digital model of plate boundaries: UPDATED MODEL OF PLATE BOUNDARIES, Geochem. Geophys. Geosystems, 4(3), 1027–1079, doi:10.1029/2001GC000252, 2003.
Van der Linden, W. J. M.: Extinct mid-ocean ridges in the Tasman sea and in the Western Pacific, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 6(6), 483–490, doi:10.1016/0012-821X(69)90120-4, 1969.
Wood, R. A. and Stagpoole, V. M.: Validation of tectonic reconstructions by crustal volume balance: New Zealand through the Cenozoic, Geol. Soc. Am. Bull., 119(7-8), 933–943, doi:10.1130/B26018.1, 2007.