Rivera Plate

Rivera Plate

Type	Minor
Approx. Area	730,000 km²^[1]
Movement¹	north-west
Speed¹	14mm/year
Features	Pacific Plate
¹Relative to the African Plate

Plate boundaries in the Pacific, offshore western Mexico

The Rivera Plate is a small tectonic plate (a microplate) located off the west coast of Mexico, just south of the Baja California Peninsula. It is bounded on the northwest by the East Pacific Rise, on the southwest by the Rivera Transform Fault, on the southeast by a deformation zone, and on the northeast by the Middle America Trench and another deformation zone.

The Rivera Plate is believed to have separated from the Cocos Plate located to its southeast about 5-10 million years ago. Seismicity and tomography images show that the Rivera plate dips at 40° beneath the forearc region and then dips ~70° beneath the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt. The subduction of the Rivera Plate under the North American Plate, in the Mid-American Trench, has been the cause of the strongest earthquakes in the history of Mexico, including the largest earthquake in Mexico during the 20th century which occurred on June 3, 1932 in the state of Jalisco. The quake had a magnitude of 8.2 with a magnitude 7.8 aftershock, both of which caused widespread casualties and damage.

On October 9, 1995, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake occurred beneath the Jalisco region and caused significant loss of life and property.

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake occurred on January 24, 2003 near Colima in Mexico.

References

↑ http://geology.about.com/library/bl/blplate_size_table.htm

Tectonic plates

Major	African Australian Antarctic Eurasian Indian North American Pacific South American

Minor	Arabian Caribbean Cocos Juan de Fuca Nazca Philippine Scotia

Other	Adriatic Aegean Sea Amurian Anatolian Balmoral Reef Banda Sea Bird's Head Burma Capricorn Caroline Conway Reef Easter Explorer Falklands Futuna Galapagos Gonâve Gorda Greenland Halmahera Iberian 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 Cimmerian Farallon Indo-Australian Insular Intermontane Izanagi Lhasa Malvinas Moa Phoenix

List of tectonic plates

Tectonic plates of Central America (Pacific Plate–North American Plate–Caribbean Plate Convergence Zone)

Large	Cocos Plate Nazca Plate

Small	Rivera Plate

Faults and rift zones	Atl Fault Atoyac Fault Ballenas Fault Carmen Fault Cerro Prieto Fault Chapala Tula Fault Zone Donaji Fault Guaymas Fault Gulf of California Rift Zone Farallon Fault Imperial Fault Zone Oaxaca Fault Pedro Miguel Fault Pescadero Fault Rivera Transform Fault Polochic Fault - Motagua Fault San Lorenzo Fault Tamayo Fault

Trenches and troughs	Alarcon Basin Carmen Basin Consag Basin Delfin Basin Guaymas Basin Middle America Trench(Acapulco/Guatemala) San Pedro Martir Basin Tehuantepec Ridge Wagner Basin

Other	Rivera Triple Junction List of faults in Costa Rica List of seismic faults in Mexico

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Rivera Plate

See also

References