The
Owen Fracture Zone is a
transform fault which runs along the eastern boundary of the
Arabian Plate, separating it from the
Indo-Australian Plate for most of its length, and from the
African Plate for a much shorter distance. It extends from the
Carlsberg Ridge in the south, meets the Sheba Rift segment of the
Aden Ridge, and then continues northeastward across the northwest
Indian Ocean until it meets the convergence zone in the Iran-Pakistan border region where the continental crust of the Arabian Plate is colliding with the continental crust of the
Eurasian Plate.