Where is the Cocos Plate located and what are its boundaries?

The Cocos Plate is a young oceanic tectonic plate located beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America. It is bounded to the northeast by the North American and Caribbean plates, to the west by the Pacific plate, and to the south by the Nazca plate. The only land above water on this plate is Cocos Island, which is administered by Costa Rica.

What we know

• The Cocos plate is an oceanic tectonic plate situated beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America and was created approximately 23 million years ago. [2, 4]
• It is bounded to the northeast by the North American plate and the Caribbean plate, which borders regions of intense seismic activity. [2, 5]
• The plate is bounded to the west by the Pacific plate and to the south by the Nazca plate. [2, 5]
• Cocos Island is the only landmass above water located on the Cocos plate, lying approximately 550 km southwest of the Costa Rican mainland. [2]

Where to go next

• what caused itHow was the Cocos Plate formed from the Farallon plate?
• a case in pointWhat is Cocos Island like?
• the bigger pictureHow do tectonic plate boundaries work generally?
• compared withWhat are the characteristics of the neighboring Nazca Plate?
• whenWhen did the Farallon plate break into the Cocos and Nazca plates?
• an unexpected connectionCould ice crustal plates on Jupiter's moon operate like Earth's tectonic plates?While the Cocos Plate is a rocky oceanic plate on Earth, Jupiter's moon Europa also displays signs of ice crustal plates moving and interacting in a similar fashion.

Sources

• [1]Cocos Plate (Wikidata Q386615) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Cocos plate · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Divergent boundary · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Plate tectonics · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Caribbean plate · CC BY-SA 4.0