Geography of Indonesia is responsible for the creation of the Sunda Trench, and mountain ranges across Sumatra, Java, and the Lesser Sunda Islands. Many great earthquakes occurred in the vicinity of the fault, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Mount Merapi, located in the Java portion of the megathrust, is the most active volcano in Indonesia and is designated as one of world's Decade Volcanoes due to the hazard it poses to the surrounding populated areas. The northern part of Sulawesi and Maluku Islands lie on the convergence of Sunda Plate and Molucca Sea Plate, making it an active tectonic region with
Oceanic trench was not recognized until well into the 20th century. The term “trench” does not appear in Murray and Hjort’s (1912) classic oceanography book. Instead they applied the term “deep“ for the deepest parts of the ocean, such as Challenger Deep. Experiences from World War I battlefields emblazoned the concept of a trench as an elongate depression defining an important boundary, perhaps leading to the term “trench” being used to describe natural features in the early 1920s. The term was first used in a geologic context by Scofield two years after the war ended to describe a structurally controlled depression in