Benham Rise

The Benham Rise, officially known as the Philippine Rise, is a seismically active undersea region and extinct volcanic ridge located in the Philippine Sea approximately 250km east of the northern coastline of Dinapigue, Isabela.Under the Philippine Sea lie a number of basins including the West Philippine Sea Basin, inside of which is located the Central Basin Fault (CBF). The Benham Plateau is located in the CBF and its basement probably is a micro-continent. Several scientific surveys have been made on the feature to study its nature and its impact on tectonic subduction, including one about its effects on the 1990 Luzon earthquake. The Philippines claimed this feature as part of its continental shelf in a claim lodged with the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf on 8 April 2009, and which was approved under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 2012.It is designated as a "protected food supply exclusive zone" by the Philippine government in May 2017. Mining and oil exploration is banned in the Benham Plateau as a protected area. On May 16, 2017, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte signed Executive Order No. 25 renaming the region to Philippine Rise.