Үнді-Аустралия тақтасы: Құралуы мен бөлінуі

Major tectonic plate formed by the fusion of the Indian and Australian plates

The Indo Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes the continent of Australia and the surrounding ocean and extends north west to include the Indian subcontinent and the adjacent waters. It was formed by the fusion of the Indian and the Australian plates approximately 43 million years ago. The fusion happened when the mid ocean ridge in the Indian Ocean, which separated the two plates, ceased spreading. Contemporary models suggest at present there is a deformation zone between the Indian and Australian plates with both earthquake and global satellite navigation system data indicating that India and Australia are not moving on the same vectors northward.

Australia New Guinea (Mainland Australia, New Guinea, and. Tasmania), the Indian subcontinent, and Zealandia (New Caledonia, New Zealand, and Norfolk Island) are all fragments of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana. As the ocean floor broke apart, these land masses fragmented from one another, and for a time these centers were thought to be dormant and fused into a single plate. However, research in the early 21st century indicates plate separation of the Indo Australian Plate may have already occurred. A third plate, known as the Capricorn Plate, may also be separating off the western side of the Indian Plate as part of the continued breakup of the Indo Australian Plate.

Recent studies, and evidence from seismic events such as the 2012 Indian Ocean earthquakes, suggest that the Indo Australian Plate may have broken up into two or three separate plates due primarily to stresses induced by the collision of the Indo Australian Plate with Eurasia along what later became the Himalayas, and that the Indian Plate and Australian Plate may have been separate since at least .