Mindanao lies across the complex convergent boundary between the Sunda Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate.[11] Part of the oblique convergence between these plates is taken up by subduction along the Cotabato Trench. The strike-slip component of the convergence is accommodated partly by the Philippine Fault System and partly by the Cotabato Fault System, a series of NW-SE trending sinistral (left-lateral) strike-slip faults that form the boundary between the Cotabato Arc and the Central Mindanao Volcanic Belt.[12]