MALAY PENINSULA

MALAY PENINSULA:  This distinctive tail of land is an illusion of modern sea levels. The Malay Peninsula and mainland Southeast Asia, as well as nearby Island of Indonesia, are one landmass. The submerged part of this land-its continental shelf-is the Sunda shelf was above sea level at the height of the last ice Age 21.000 years ago, The river of the Indochina Peninsula extended far beyond their current deltas. Along the shelf’s South and west, the oceanic edges of the Australian and the Indian plates dive under the Eurasian plate, creating the java Trench and the Mentawei Ridge. This action gave birth to the Andaman Sea, where new ocean floor is spreading along the fault line. Along the Java Trench, an earthquake off the northwest corner of Sumatra produced the devastating 2004 Indian ocean tsunami.