The team of specialists from the Taiwanese National University and the University of Houston in the United States found a previously unknown tectonic slab in the Philippine Sea, hidden deep under the surface of the earth, over which the ancient sea was located.
Using images collected on the basis of earthquake data, geologists have established how the region studied by them looks about 52 million years ago. It helped researchers identify a new East Asian slab , where the sea existed in the distant past.
The Philippine Sea is at the junction of several large tectonic plates. Larger of these, such as Pacific, Indo-Australian and Eurasian surround several small, including the Philippine Plate, which, according to researchers, migrated to the north-west since its formation about 55 million years ago.
In this process, the Philippine Plate, faced with the northern edge of East Asian, pulling it deep into the earthly manta. The southern part of the East Asian slab in the end, according to scientists, subjected to subducts (tightening the lithospheric plates of the oceanic bark and the breeds of the mantle under the edges of other plates).
bbabo.Net