Tonga Plate

The Tonga Plate is a small southwest Pacific tectonic plate or microplate. It is centered at approximately 19° S. latitude and 173° E. longitude. The plate is an elongated plate oriented NNE - SSW and is a northward continuation of the Kermadec linear zone north of New Zealand. The plate is bounded on the east and north by the Pacific Plate, on the northwest by the Niuafo’ou Microplate, on the west and south by the Indo-Australian Plate. The Tonga plate is subducting the Pacific plate along the Tonga Trench. This subduction turns into a transform fault boundary north of Tonga. An active rift or spreading center separates the Tonga from the Australian plate and the Niuafo’ou microplate to the west. The Tonga plate is seismically very active and is rotating clockwise.

These were the plates that moved when the 2009 tsunami hit Samoa.

References

• Bird, P., An updated digital model of plate boundaries, Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst., 4(3), 1027, doi:10.1029/2001GC000252, 2003.

Tectonic plates
Major	African Indo-Australian Plate Antarctic Eurasian North American Pacific South American
Minor	Arabian Caribbean Cocos Juan de Fuca Nazca Philippine Scotia
Other	Adriatic Aegean Sea Amurian Anatolian Australian Balmoral Reef Banda Sea Bird's Head Burma Capricorn Caroline Conway Reef Easter Explorer Falklands Futuna Galapagos Gonâve Gorda Greenland Halmahera Iberian Indian Iranian Juan Fernández Kerguelen Kermadec Kula Madagascar Manus Maoke Mariana Molucca Sea New Hebrides Niuafo’ou North Andes North Bismarck North Galapagos Nubian Okhotsk Okinawa Panama Pelso Philippine Mobile Belt Rivera Sangihe Seychelles Shetland Solomon Sea Somali South Bismarck South Sandwich Sunda Timor Tisza Tonga Woodlark Yangtze
Historical	Baltic Bellingshausen Charcot Cimmeria Farallon Insular Intermontane Izanagi Lhasa Malvinas Moa Phoenix
List of tectonic plates