The Maoke Plate is a small tectonic element beneath western New Guinea that underlies the Sudirman Range, the mountain chain that hosts Puncak Jaya, the island’s highest summit. Its eastern margin was initially interpreted as a convergent contact with the Woodlark Plate, but more recent models reassign this interaction either to an expanded Solomon Sea Plate or to a discrete Trobriand microplate, reflecting revised geophysical and tectonic interpretations. To the south the Maoke Plate forms a transform boundary with the Australian Plate, implying predominant lateral (strike‑slip) motion along that margin. On the western side it abuts the Bird’s Head Plate, situating Maoke within a tightly interlocked mosaic of microplates and larger plates characteristic of the New Guinea region. The combination of convergent (or reassigned convergent) interactions to the east and transform motion to the south provides a coherent tectonic framework for understanding the uplift and emplacement of high topography in the area, including the formation of the Sudirman Range and the prominence of Puncak Jaya.