Key facts
- Type
- Minor
- Approximate area
- 11,900,000 km (4,600,000 sq mi)
- Movement
- North-east
- Speed
- 26–36 mm/a (1.0–1.4 in/year)
- Features
- Indian subcontinent , Indian Ocean , Arabian Sea , Himalayas
via Wikipedia infobox
Article
The Indian plate is a minor tectonic plate straddling the equator in the Indian Ocean. Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, the Indian plate broke away from the other fragments of Gondwana 100 million years ago and began moving north, carrying Insular India with it. It was once fused with the adjacent Australian plate to form a single Indo-Australian plate, but recent studies suggest that India and Australia may have been separate plates for at least 3 million years. The Indian plate includes most of modern South Asia (the Indian subcontinent) and a portion of the basin under the Indian Ocean, including parts of Tibet, Sumatra, and extending up to but not including Ladakh, Kohistan, and most of Balochistan in Pakistan.
Plate movements