Northeast Asia and the Bering Sea remain one of the largest regions for which there is not agreement about the tectonic plate configuration. Far eastern Russia is part of the North American tectonic plate, but the Aleutian arc and at least part of the Bering Sea are moving westward relative to North America. This has led to the proposal of a Bering Plate, and also alternative proposals in which only a part of the Bering Sea crust moves relative to North America. A team of US and Russian scientists is using a combination of GPS surveys around and within the Bering Sea and data from the EarthScope PBO to resolve a fundamental question: does the Bering Plate exist? If not, how large is the mobile sliver of crust in the southern Bering Sea? These observations can test hypotheses that underlie tectonic models for a significant area at the northwestern corner of the North American plate, and the answers are important for understanding the forces that drive motion of small plates. The results of the project will impact our understanding of deformation in the Aleutian Arc, and from central Alaska to eastern Siberia.
