Aru Trough

The Aru Trough is a curving trench in the western Pacific Ocean, reaching a maximum depth of 12,000 feet (3,660 meters). It is located north of Australia and south of New Guinea, bordering the Aru Islands. Oceanic troughs are elongated depressions on the seafloor, generally shallower and narrower than oceanic trenches. Deep-sea trenches, like the Aru Trough, are steep-sided depressions where one tectonic plate subducts under another, creating extreme oceanic depths. The Aru Trough is part of a chain of depressions that extends through the Ceram, Arafura, and Timor seas, eventually connecting to the Java Trench in the Indian Ocean.123