Tonga Trench

The Tonga Trench is an oceanic trench located in the South Pacific Ocean. It is 10,882 metres (35,702 ft) deep at its deepest point, known as the Horizon Deep. According to the August 2011 version of the GEBCO Gazetteer of Undersea Feature Names, the location and depth of the Horizon Deep are given as 23°15.5′S 174°43.6′W / 23.2583°S 174.7267°W / -23.2583; -174.7267 and 10,800 m (35,433 ft) ±10 m (33 ft).

The Tonga Trench is a convergent plate boundary. The trench lies at the northern end of the Kermadec-Tonga Subduction Zone, an active subduction zone where the Pacific Plate is being subducted below the Tonga Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate. The Tonga Trench extends north-northeast from the Kermadec Islands north of the North Island of New Zealand. The trench turns west north of the Tonga Plate and becomes a transform fault zone.

The convergence is taking place at a rate estimated at approximately 15 centimetres (6 in) per year (by Lonsdale, 1986); however, recent Global Positioning Satellite measurements indicate in places a convergence of 24 centimetres (9 in) per year across the northern Tonga Trench, which is the fastest plate velocity recorded on the planet; a result is the earth's most active zone of mantle seismicity. While most of the large earthquakes occur at the contact zone between both tectonic plates, related to the friction during subduction, others are produced in the Pacific plate due to its bending.

Tonga

Coordinates: 20°S 175°W / 20°S 175°W / -20; -175

Tonga ([ˈtoŋa]; Tongan: Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is a Polynesian sovereign state and archipelago comprising 177 islands of which 52 islands are inhabited. The total surface area is about 750 square kilometres (290 sq mi) scattered over 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) of the southern Pacific Ocean. It has a population 103,000 people of whom 70% reside on the main island of Tongatapu.

Tonga stretches over about 800 kilometres (500 mi) in a north-south line – about a third of the distance from New Zealand to Hawaii. It is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna (France) to the northwest, Samoa to the northeast, Niue to the east, Kermadec (part of New Zealand) to the southwest, and New Caledonia (France) and Vanuatu to the farther west.

Tonga became known as the Friendly Islands because of the congenial reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit in 1773. He arrived at the time of the ʻinasi festival, the yearly donation of the First Fruits to the Tuʻi Tonga (the islands' paramount chief) and so received an invitation to the festivities. According to the writer William Mariner, the chiefs wanted to kill Cook during the gathering but could not agree on a plan.

Tonga (disambiguation)

Tonga is a Pacific Island nation whose people are known as Tongans.

Tonga may also refer to:

Places

People

Languages

In Polynesian mythology

Other uses

Tonga (Tuvalu)

Tonga is a village in Tuvalu.

Population

Tonga's population is 358, making it the seventh most populous village in Tuvalu. It is the main village of the island of Nanumanga, comprising 52% of the population of the island. The only other village is on the island Tokelau.

See also

References

Coordinates: 6°17′S 176°19′E / 6.283°S 176.317°E / -6.283; 176.317