Okhotsk Plate
| Okhotsk Plate | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Type | Minor |
| Movement1 | south-west |
| Speed1 | 13-14mm/year |
| Features | Kamchatka Peninsula, Sakhalin Island, Sea of Okhotsk |
| 1Relative to the African Plate | |
The Okhotsk Plate is a minor tectonic plate covering the Sea of Okhotsk, the Kamchatka Peninsula, Sakhalin Island and Tōhoku and Hokkaidō in Japan. It was formerly considered a part of the North American Plate, but recent studies indicate that it is an independent plate, bounded on the north by the North American Plate. The boundary is a left-lateral moving transform fault, the Ulakhan Fault. On the east, the plate is bounded by the Pacific Plate at the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench and the Japan Trench, on the south by the Philippine Sea Plate at the Nankai Trough, on the west by the Eurasian Plate, and possibly on the southwest by the Amurian Plate.
The boundary between Okhotsk Plate and Amurian Plate might be responsible for many strong earthquakes that occurred in the Sea of Japan as well as in the Sakhalin island, such as the MW7.1 (MS7.5 according to other sources) earthquake of May 27, 1995 in northern Sakhalin. The earthquake devastated Neftegorsk, and the town was not rebuilt after the earthquake. Other notable intraplate earthquakes such as the 1983 Sea of Japan earthquake and the 1993 Hokkaidō earthquake triggered tsunamis in the Sea of Japan.
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