sea are hazardous to navigation, with many small rocky islands, the middle of the sea is relatively open. Island groups within the sea include the Banda Islands. A number of islands in the Banda Sea are active volcanoes including Gunung Api and Manuk in the Banda Islands. Geology Plate tectonic activities in Banda Sea The Banda arc is famous for its 180° curvature and is, in Timor, generally agreed to be the product of collision between a volcanic arc and the Australian continental margin. The Banda Sea occupies the main portion of the Banda Sea Plate. The southern margin of the sea consists of island arcs above subduction zones. To the east of the Sunda Trench is the Timor Trough which lies south of Timor, the Tanimbar Trough south of the Tanimbar Islands and the Aru Trough east of the Aru Islands. These trenches are the subduction zone of the Indo-Australian plate beneath the Banda Sea Plate, where the Indo-Australian Plate moves northwards. Fore-arc sediments progressively carried northwards by the Indo-Australian Plate have been folded and faulted forming Timor island. To the northeast lies Seram Island which overlies the subduction of the Bird's Head Plate of West Papua. The deepest point of the sea, Weber Deep, is an exposed oceanic fault and the world's deepest forearc basin, with depth more than . Earthquakes Earthquakes are very frequent in the area, due to the confluence of three tectonic plates - Eurasian, Pacific and Indo-Australian plates. 1852 Banda Sea earthquake 1938 Banda Sea earthquake 2006 Banda Sea earthquake Ecology The Banda Sea is a marine ecoregion, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund. It is part of the Coral Triangle region, which has the greatest diversity of coral reef species in the broader Indo-Pacific. The islands surrounding the Banda Sea are part of Wallacea, a biogeographical region that contains the islands lying between Asia and Australia which haven't been joined to either continent. The islands of Wallacea are home to a mix of plant and animal species from both tropical Asia (the Indomalayan realm) and the Australasian realm which includes Australia and New Guinea. The islands are divided among several terrestrial ecoregions. The northern islands of Sulawesi, Buru, and Seram constitute separate tropical moist forest ecoregions. The islands south of the Banda Sea are among the driest in Indonesia, and are home to tropical dry forests. The Timor and Wetar deciduous forests