The Juan Fernandez microplate north of the Pacific-Nazca-Antarctic plate junction at 35°S

Results of the R/V "Thomas Washington" Pascua 3 expedition provide evidence for the existence of the Juan Fernandez microplate just north of the junction between the East Pacific Rise (EPR) and the Chile fracture zone. Prior to Pascua 3, the microplate in the region had been hypothesized from the pattern of seismicity. The eastern and western boundaries of the Juan Fernandez microplate are well defined and represent north-south trending spreading centers characterized by very slow and very fast rates of accretion respectively. In agreement with the rates, the eastern boundary is represented by a rift valley and the western boundary by an EPR-type axial ridge. The northern boundary of the Juan Fernandez microplate is a 100°-trending wide fracture zone complex which may have resulted from northward transform fault migration. The fracture zone fails to meet the zone of accretion at the Pacific-Nazca-Juan Fernandez triple junction. In this area the zone of accretion displays a double ridge with a large overlap. The southern boundary of the Juan Fernandez microplate is still poorly constrained. The plate geometry derived from SEABEAM differs from that derived by Anderson-Fontana et al. (1986) [14] from a plate motion inversion scheme using primarily earthquake first-motion solutions together with limited bathymetric and magnetic data. © 1987.