Similarly the overriding plate consists of two microplates, the Sunda and Burma plates.

Its collision with the Burma plate created the volcanoes of Sumatra as well thousands of earthquakes, including the magnitude 9.0 killer.

To the west is the much larger India Plate, which is subducting beneath the eastern facet of the Burma Plate.

The Burma Plate is a small tectonic plate or microplate located in Southeast Asia, often considered a part of the larger Eurasian Plate.

The India Plate subducts beneath the Burma Plate at the Sunda Trench or Java Trench.

The India Plate sinks deeper and deeper beneath the Burma Plate until the increasing temperature and pressure drive volatiles out of the subducting plate.

On December 26, 2004, a large portion of the boundary between the Burma Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate slipped, causing the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

The India Plate meets the Burma Plate (which is considered a portion of the great Eurasian Plate) at the Sunda Trench.

The India and Australian Plates are subducting beneath the Sunda and Burma plates along the Sunda Arc.

The Ganges Delta lies at the junction of three tectonic plates: the Indian Plate, the Eurasian Plate, and the Burma Plate.

Running in a rough north-south line on the seabed of the Andaman Sea is the boundary between two tectonic plates, the Burma plate and the Sunda Plate.

Yet the water displacement caused by the thrusting of the Indian plate beneath the Burma plate created 30-foot waves that were to kill people on the African coast more than 3,000 miles away.

At this point the India Plate subducts beneath the Burma Plate, which carries the Nicobar Islands, the Andaman Islands, and northern Sumatra.

It is caused by the ongoing subduction of the India Plate beneath the Andaman island arc, which forces magma to rise in this location of the Burma Plate.

The Sumatran coast is in the subduction zone where the Indian plate meets the Burma plate beneath the Andaman Sea, forming the northern part of the Sunda trench.

The Nicobar Islands are a series of volcanic islands that are part of an active volcanic arc, formed above the subduction zone where the Indo-Australian Plate passes beneath the Burma Plate.

Weh Island is located in the Andaman Sea, where two groups of islands, the Nicobar Islands and Andaman Islands, are scattered in one line from Sumatra to the north up to the Burma plate.

The tsunami also resulted in various geomorphological changes in the region such as those in the contour of the 2,000 km-long Burma plate, which sits atop the India plate, resulting in a rise in the land level of Chennai, ranging between 0.5 cm and 3 cm.

After a further series of transform faulting, and the continuing subduction of the India Plate beneath the Burma plate, backarc spreading saw the formation of the marginal basin and seafloor spreading centre which would become the Andaman Sea, a process well-underway by the mid-Pliocene (3-4 Ma).

The arc marks an active convergent boundary between the East Eurasian plates that underlie Indonesia, especially the Sunda Plate and the Burma Plate, with the India and Australian Plates that form the seabed of the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal.