It is now known to be much smaller than originally proposed, mainly because of information from GPS stations on islands and sea floor studies that have fully defined its margins.

[3][4] As originally modelled it extended to the west along the east coast of New Guinea and was subducting beneath the Caroline plate along its northern border.

[10] The Woodlark plate's eastern side is being subducted northeast beneath the New Georgia Islands on the Solomon Sea/Pacific plate but here the deformation front lacks a flexed outer rise and bathymetric trench, and is represented by the San Cristobal Trough extension to the north of the San Cristobal Trench.

[8] Where the Woodlark Basin is subducted northeast beneath the New Georgia Islands the relative light plate made of recent oceanic type basalt stays shallow and is presumably being melted on mantle contact and producing the many arc volcanoes of the western Solomon Islands.

[11] The southern boundary of the plate is defined by a mid oceanic ridge that is actively spreading tholeiitic basalt similar to mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB) in a mostly north and south directions across its center in an east–west orientation with the Australian plate being to the south.