Sunda Trench an underwater ridge, and much of the trench is at least partially filled with sediments. Mappings after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake of the plate boundary showed resemblance to suspension bridge cables, with peaks and sags, indicative of asperity and locked faults, instead of the traditional wedge shape expected. Some of the earliest exploration of the Trench occurred in the late 1950s when Robert Fisher, Research Geologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, investigated the trench as part of a worldwide scientific field exploration of the world's ocean floor and sub-oceanic crustal-structure. Bomb-sounding, echo-train analysis and manometer were some of
Tonga Trench midway between two large oceanic plateaux north and south of the Tonga Trench respectively: Manihiki to the north and Hikurangi to the south. These plateaux once formed part of the Ontong Java-Manihiki-Hikurangi large igneous province (LIP). Spreading between the plateaux ceased when Hikurangi collided with the Chatham Rise east of New Zealand at 86 Ma. The western end of the Osbourn Trough is bounded by the Tonga Trench and its eastern by the Wishbone–East Manihiki Scarp. In between the Osbourn Trough is divided into three segments separated by dextral offsets. Near the Tonga Trench the bathymetry of these structures is