Kyushu-Palau Ridge

Kyushu-Palau Ridge on ocean floor of Philippine Sea

Kyushu-Palau Ridge (KPR)^[1] is an ocean floor feature in the Philippine Sea. It is named after the nearby islands. At the northern end is the Japanese island of Kyushu. At the southern end is the Pacific island nation of Palau.^[2]

The seabed ridge begins in an area about 900 km from the eastern end of the Lua error in Module:Unicode_data at line 293: attempt to index local 'data_module' (a boolean value). or "Bungo strait" between the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Shikoku. The ridge creates a line on the ocean floor which runs southeast in the direction of the island of Palau. There is a chain of extinct volcanos on this line.^[3]

KPR is southeast of the Japanese island of Kyushu.

History

KPR was created by movement at the northern edges of the Philippine Plate.^[4]

Kyushu-Palau Ridge Media

Cross-section through the shallow part of a subduction zone showing the relative positions of an active magmatic arc and back-arc basin, such as the southern part of the Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc.
Simplified tectonic history of the IBM arc system, viewed along E-W profiles. Red corresponds to regions of magmatic activity, blue is magmatically extinct.
Simplified bathymetric and topographic profile along the IBM magmatic arc
Simplified bathymetric profiles across the IBM arc system, approximate locations shown in first figure. T indicates position of trench.
Sediment cored at Ocean Drilling Program Site 1149 (see previous figure for location). Far right gives lithology and age, 3 columns show vertical variations of Calcium, Silicon, and Aluminum, indicators of relative carbonate, chert, and clay or ash. Modified from Plank et al. (2006).