Arabian Plate

     The Arabian plate, shown in bright yellow

Closeup of the Arabian plate boundaries with the Eurasian, African and Indian plates.

The Arabian Plate is one of three tectonic plates (the African, Arabian and Indian crustal plates) which have been moving northward over millions of years toward an inevitable collision with Eurasia. This is resulting in a mingling of plate pieces and mountain ranges extending in the west from the Pyrenees, crossing southern Europe and the Middle East, to the Himalayas and ranges of southeast Asia. ^[1]

The Arabian Plate consists mostly of the Arabian peninsula; it extends northward to Turkey. The plate borders are:

• East, with the Indo-Australian Plate
• South, with the African Plate to the west and the Indo-Australian Plate to the east
• West, a left lateral fault boundary with the African Plate called the Dead Sea Transform (DST), and a divergent boundary with the African Plate called the Red Sea Rift which runs the length of the Red Sea;
• North, complex convergent boundary with the Anatolian Plate and Eurasian Plate.

The Arabian Plate was part of the African plate during much of the Phanerozoic Eon (Paleozoic - Cenozoic), until the Oligocene Epoch of the Cenozoic Era. Red Sea rifting began in the Eocene, but the separation of Africa and Arabia occurred in the Oligocene, and since then the Arabian Plate has been slowly moving toward the Eurasian Plate.

The collision between the Arabian Plate and Eurasia is pushing up the Zagros Mountains of Iran.

Notes

1. ^ "Tectonics of the Arabian Plate". NASA.gov. http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/handbooks/arabianpages/mainframe.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-21. 

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