Java Trench

Java Trench

[
United States Geological Survey] The Java Trench, also called Sunda Trench, located in the northeastern Indian Ocean, with a length of 2,600 km and a maximum depth of 7,725 meters (at 10°19'S, 109°58'E, about 320 km south of Yogyakarta), was long thought to be the deepest trench of the Indian Ocean, but it is in fact second to the Diamantina Trench in the South East Indian Basin.

The trench is a seam of tectonic plates, the Burma and Sunda on the east, and the India Plate on the west. Deformation along the plate boundary, or subduction zone, resulted in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and the ensuing deadly tsunami on December 26, 2004.

There is scientific evidence that the recent earthquake activity in the area of the Java Trench could lead to further catastrophic shifting within a relatively short period of time, perhaps less than a decade. [ [http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18524914.500.html Asia primed for next big quake - earth - 19 March 2005 - New Scientist Environment ] ] This threat has resulted in international agreements to establish a Tsunami warning system in place along the Indian Ocean coast. [ [http://ioc3.unesco.org/indotsunami/IOC23/ioc23.htm IOC: Towards a Tsunami Warning System in the Indian Ocean ] ]

Exploration

Some of the earliest exploration of the Trench occurred in the late 1950s when Robert Fisher, Research Geologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, investigated the trench as part of a world wide scientific field exploration of the world's ocean floor and sub-oceanic crustal-structure. Bomb-sounding, echo-train analysis and manometer were some of the techniques used to determine the depth of the trench. The research contributed to an understanding of the subduction characteristic of the Pacific margins. [http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:iOPBcdHW5CUJ:www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/gebco/news/rlfnews.pdf+bathymetry+sunda+trench&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5#7]

Various agencies have explored the trench in the aftermath of the 2004 earthquake, and these explorations have revealed extensive changes in the ocean floor. [ [http://www.jamstec.go.jp/jamstec-e/sumatra/natsushima/topics/0502/ "The underwater survey of the SUMATRA earthquake source area" ] ]

In popular culture

The Sunda [Java] Trench is a clue to the location of the wreckage of missing Oceanic Flight 815 in "Find 815," [http://www.find815.com] a viral marketing/alternate reality game based on the ABC television series "Lost".

ee also

* Sunda Arc
* Oceanic trench
* 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

References

Further reading

* Špičák, A., V. Hanuš, and J. Vaněk (2007), "Earthquake occurrence along the Java trench in front of the onset of the Wadati-Benioff zone: Beginning of a new subduction cycle?", Tectonics, 26, TC1005


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Java Trench — a trench in the Indian Ocean, S of Java: deepest known part of Indian Ocean. 25,344 ft. (7725 m) deep. Formerly, Java Trough. * * * ▪ Indian Ocean also called  Sunda Double Trench        deep submarine depression in the eastern Indian Ocean that… …   Universalium

  • Java Trench — Ja′va Trench′ n. oce geg a trench in the Indian Ocean, S of Java: deepest known part of Indian Ocean. 25,344 ft. (7725 m) deep …   From formal English to slang

  • Java Trench — a trench in the Indian Ocean, S of Java: deepest known part of Indian Ocean. 25,344 ft. (7725 m) deep. Formerly, Java Trough …   Useful english dictionary

  • Java Trench — /dʒavə ˈtrɛntʃ/ (say jahvuh trench) noun a depression in the floor of the north eastern Indian Ocean; tectonic activity here associated with earthquakes such as that which resulted in the Asian tsunami of 2004. Maximum depth, 7725 m …  

  • Java (disambiguation) — Java most commonly refers to: * Java, an island in Indonesia and the most populous island in the world * Java (Sun), a technology developed by Sun Microsystems for machine independent software * JAVA, Sun Microsystems stock symbolJava may also… …   Wikipedia

  • July 2006 Java earthquake — earthquake title= July 2006 Java earthquake date= [1asdfasdfasdfaasdkjfkasjdfadsfj;fdsa;lfadkljadfslkljkdsfljdsflfkdjs;fasdljkjlkadfskjlafdskljadfsk;jlafds;jlkfadsl;kjadfsdfsa=/news/2006/07/17/utsunami.xml sSheet=/news/2006/07/17/ixnews.html date …   Wikipedia

  • Oceanic trench — Oceanic crust is formed at an oceanic ridge, while the lithosphere is subducted back into the asthenosphere at trenches. The oceanic trenches are hemispheric scale long but narrow topographic depressions of the sea floor. They are also the… …   Wikipedia

  • Philippine Trench — The Philippine Trench (also Philippine Deep, Mindanao Trench, and Mindanao Deep) is a submarine trench to the east of the Philippines. It has a length of approximately 1,320 km and a width of about 30 km from the centre of the Philippine island… …   Wikipedia

  • Manila Trench — The Manila Trench is an ocean trench in the South China Sea, west of the Philippines. It reaches a depth of about 5,400 m,[1] in contrast with the average depth of the South China Sea of about 1,500 m. It is created by subduction, in which the… …   Wikipedia

  • Manus Trench — is a trench delineating the oceanic boundary between the Caroline Plate and North Bismarck Plates, in Papua New Guinea.[1] The Kilinailai Trench, which looks as if it is a continuation of the Manus Trench, marks the boundary between the Pacific… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”