Sunda Trench is considered to be part of the Pacific Ring of Fire as well as one of a ring of oceanic trenches around the northern edges of the Australian Plate. In 2005, scientists found evidence that the 2004 earthquake activity in the area of the Java Trench could lead to further catastrophic shifting within a relatively short period of time, perhaps less than a decade. This threat has resulted in international agreements to establish a tsunami warning system in place along the Indian Ocean coast. For about half its length, off of Sumatra, it is divided into two parallel troughs by
Japan Trench within the Japan Trench consist mainly of highly localized clay-rich material. The subducting Pacific Plate creates basins along the ocean floor of the Japan Trench, accommodating the deposition of fine-grained turbidites and interseismic sediment deposits through turbidity currents. These turbidites preserve the sediment deposits as a geologic record of past large earthquakes by indicating the change in sediment deposition through sediment gravity flow. The small deep-sea basins with high sedimentation rates found along the Japan Trench fault line pose favorable environmental conditions for the studying of turbidite paleoseismology. During an exploration to the Japan Trench on January 1, 1999, a