Amurian Plate
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Amurian Plate |
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My Blogs (olelog) are mainly based on my daily
reading of earth science news.
Here on whatonearth.olehnielsen.dk I try to weave
some of the pieces together to a greater whole with added background info.
|
||
The Amurian Plate (or Amur Plate) is a proposed continental tectonic plate covering Manchuria, the Korean Peninsula, Western Japan, and Primorsky Krai. It is sometimes called the Chinese Plate
(The existence of the Amurian plate (AM), which covers the region from the Baikal rift to the Nankai trench, including the Korean Peninsula, was proposed first by Zonenshain and Savostin (1981) [Zonenshain, L. P., and L. S. Savostin, ''Geodynamics of the Baikal rift zone and plate tectonics of Asia,'' Tectonophysics, 76, 1-45, 1981]). It is still discussed whether such a plate exists or not.
It is not clear yet whether it is an independent plate or a part of the Eurasian Plate. It is bounded on the north and west by the Eurasian Plate, on the northeast by the Okhotsk Plate, and on the south by the Philippine Plate. Lake Baikal is considered a boundary between the Amurian Plate and the Eurasian Plate.The Amurian-Eurasian pole is located to the northeast of the Baikal Rift and to the northwest of the Stanovoy Range. According to a recent study the Baikal Rift is extending at a rate of 0.4-0.7 mm/yr.
The boundary between the Eurasian and Amurian plates in marked by the Baikal-Stanovoy seismic belt representing a band of earthquake epicenters extending along the southern margin of the Siberian platform from Lake Baikal in the west to Uda Bay of the Sea of Okhotsk in the east. The belt can be divided into two parts: the western part in which the Baikal rift zone is developed, and the eastern one which is referred to as the independent Olekma-Stanovoy seismic zone.
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Map from USGS Lake Baikal is by the way the deepest and oldest lake in the world. It is the largest freshwater lake on the earth by volume. It contains over one fifth of the world's liquid fresh surface water and more than 90% of Russia's liquid fresh surface water. |
The Baikal rift zone is marked by a stable horizontal extension of the Earth’s crust. A system of basins are forming here, which are surrounded by mountain ridges.
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