Meaning of natural prolongation
424. With respect to the question of the Parties’ entitlements to the
continental shelf beyond 200 nm, Bangladesh has made considerable efforts
to describe the geological evolution of the Bay of Bengal and its geophysical
characteristics known as the Bengal depositional system. Bangladesh points
out in particular that the Indian plate, on which the entire Bengal depositional
system is located, slides under the adjacent Burma plate close to and along
the coast of Myanmar, thus resulting in the Sunda Subduction Zone.
According to Bangladesh, this subduction zone, which marks the collision
between the two separate tectonic plates, represents the most fundamental
geological discontinuity in the Bay of Bengal.