By: Java, John Aldrin, Go Patrick, Managa Nylle

3CS

 Indeed the plate is squeezed in

between the Eurasian plate and the Pacific Plate, but the situation is more complex than that.
The

Philippine Islands are surrounded by complex plate boundaries, and the Philippines Plate rather consists of several micro-plates - squeezed in between two convergent plate margins.

 The lines with black triangles are active subduction

zones with teeth on the over-riding plate. Lines with white triangles are passive subduction zones with teeth on the over-riding plate. The major Philippine fault zone is shown as a black line with arrows showing the movement direction. The volcanoes Pinatubo and Mayon are shown as red dots. The volcanoes of the Philippines are probably the most deadly in world. They are concentrated in a northern volcanic arc above and east of the north-western subduction zone (Manila Trench) and in a southern volcanic arc above and west of the south-eastern subduction zone (Philippine trench). The Sulu trench also produce a (discontinuous) line of active volcanoes. The Mayon volcano may be associated with the transform fault that connects the eastern and the western subduction zones. This transform fault is offset by the younger northsouth directed Philippine Fault

 The Philippine is estimated to have formed during

the Pleistocene Period 2 million B.C. It has distinct geographical features and has an array of land and water forms. These can all be explained by the Plate Tectonic Theory.

ICE AGE

 The

Philippine is the product of the continental drift of the Philippine Sea Plate. collision of the Eurasian plate and the Philippine Sea plate with the Pacific plate and IndianAustralian plate created the current low and high lands, islands and seas in the Philippines.

The

Evidences of these were the Sierra

Madre range and Zambales range in the eastern upward movement of the Philippine Sea while it was being squeezed between the movement of the Eurasian plate and the Pacific plate.

 The Philippines was considered

as Proto-Philippine with the islands of Bicol, Leyte, and Eastern Mindanao that were formed during the Cretaceous Period100-65 million B.C. was concentrated in the Equatorial Zone in between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian plate which served as the first islands that shaped the country.

It

 Back

then Palawan and Zamboanga connected to the Eurasian plate.

were

They stirred towards the east and joined together

the islands of the Philippines.

During this movement, three major island groups

emerged: Luzon which covered Luzon up to Samar, Eastern and Central Mindanao and Zamboanga and Western Mindanao.

 The continental drift caused some volcanic

activities and earthquakes.

It also created trenches of which volcanoes arise.

Examples of these can be seen at the eastern part of the country, like Bicol and Leyte. were located at the Philippine Sea trench and the East Luzon trough which resulted form the collision of the Philippine Sea plate and the Pacific plate.

They

It can also be seen in the western part of the

country like the volcanoes in Batanes, Tagalog region, Panay-Negros, Zamboanga-Sulu.

There are also trenches in Manila-Negros-Sulu-

Cotabato due to the continent drift of the Eurasian plate and the Philippine Sea plate.

 In addition, faults were created. There were earthquakes because of the

movement of the faults.

There were constant earthquakes

that started in Mindanao that ran through Leyte, Masbate, and Quezon until it halted at Cordillera.
The formation of rivers and valleys

in Marikina and Central Luzon were assumed to be the result of the convergent plate boundaries.

 South China Sea widen because

of the aperture in between the Eurasian plate and the Micro continental Block during the early Miocene period.
A major event during the middle

Miocene period was the collision of the Micro continental Block of Palawan into the original islands of the Philippines which caused volcanic activities in Sulu.

 In the late Miocene period, the volcanic eruptions ceased in the

islands of Sulu but the Pacific and Philippine plates continued to move. The northern part of the Manila trench crashed into Taiwan that caused the low lands of Luzon to appear from the ocean. The Manila Trench reached the Western Mindanao in the last part of the Miocene period. It was cut-off and became Negros and Cotabato trenches when Mindoro-Palawan and the Peninsula of Zamboanga were pinned to the original islands of the Philippines. It was also during this time that the eastern part of the Philippines sank in the Philippine trench area. This was the start of the formation of the Philippines in its current location, form and shape.

The plate tectonics in the Philippines is complex and includes plate boundaries that are changing rapidly. Several micro-plates are getting squeezed between two convergent plate margins. Stratigraphic evidence indicates cessation and reactivation of subduction at some trenches. The currently active volcanoes in the Philippines define two north-south trending arcs. The scale and type of volcanism varies from monogenetic cinder cone fields to large stratovolcanoes and calderas. Composition of volcanic rocks range from tholeiitic basalt to andesite to shoshonite. Black triangles = active subduction zones with "teeth" on the over-riding plate, white triangles = inactive subduction zones with "teeth" on the over-riding plate, arrows = transform or major strike-slip faults, red triangles = volcanoes active in the last 10,000 years. Plates and micro-plates shown in different colors. Based on Divis (1983). Volcanoes from Simkin and Siebert (1994).

 In the west, more steeply

east-dipping subduction of the Eurasian Plate along the 560 mile (900 km) length of the Manila and Sulu trenches produces a discontinuous line of active volcanoes from Taal in the south to Iraya in the north.
Volcanism associated with

this subduction zone began about 10 million years ago.

 In the east, shallow west-dipping subduction of the

Philippine Plate at the Philippine Trench produces a line of volcanoes from Balut in the south to Mayon in the north. Based on Divis (1983). Volcanoes in an east-west zone across central Luzon may be associated with a "leaky" transform fault that connects the two subduction zones. The transform fault is offset to the right by the younger Philippine Fault. Based on Divis (1983). The volcanoes of the Philippines are the most deadly and costly in the world. Fatalities have been caused by 13% of the historic eruptions, most notably at Taal and Mayon, and 22% of the eruptions caused damage. Mudflows are more common in the Philippines, compared to other regions, because of heavy rains. Tsunami are more commonly associated with eruptions at the Philippines than in any other volcanic region. Many of the Holocene volcanoes in the Philippines have eruptive products that have not been dated. Since the Philippines Institute of Volcanology and Seismology has been established the impacts of eruptions have been greatly reduced.