North America just got smaller

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19025505.300-north-america-just-got-smaller.html

WHERE does North America end and Russia begin? The political boundaries haven't changed, but the geological ones will have to.

The Kamchatka peninsula, once thought to be on the North American plate, turns out to lie on a small, previously unknown plate.

After measuring the elevations of shorelines dating back to the Ice Age, Joanne Bourgeois of the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues conclude that Kamchatka sits on the Okhotsk plate (Geology, vol 34, p 353).

[MiniMandaRuth]

1. Hmmm....

Fascinating.

[Odin2005]

2. The geology of that part of the world just got even more complicated.

None of the texbook tectonic maps I've seen explains the geologic processes of that area, most just say "undefined boundary" to describle the boundary between the Eurasian and N. American plates. North America and Eurasia are a single continent geolgically, it's just that the connecting chunk of continental crust is underwater except during glacial episodes.