To its east lies the Sunda plate, from which it is separated along a transform boundary, running in a rough north–south line through the Andaman Sea.

This boundary between the Burma and Sunda plates is a marginal seafloor spreading centre, which has led to the opening up of the Andaman Sea (from a southerly direction) by "pushing out" the Andaman-Nicobar-Sumatra island arc from mainland Asia, a process which began in earnest approximately 4 million years ago.

In models of the reconstructed tectonic history of the area, the generally northwards movement of the Indo-Australian plate resulted in its substantive collision with the Eurasian continent, which began during the Eocene epoch, approximately 50–55 million years ago (Ma).

The transform forces along this subduction front started the clockwise bending of the Sunda arc; in the late Oligocene (ca.

[4] This rapid rise in the sea floor over such a short time (seven minutes[4]) generated a massive tsunami that killed approximately 229,800 people along the coast of the Indian Ocean.