Hall Etal 2009 IPA SE Asia Reconstruction

8/12/2019 Hall Etal 2009 IPA SE Asia Reconstruction

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IPA09-G-134

PROCEEDINGS, INDONESIAN PETROLEUM ASSOCIATIONThirty-Third Annual Convention & Exhibition, May 2009

SUNDALAND: BASEMENT CHARACTER, STRUCTURE AND PLATE TECTONIC

DEVELOPMENT

Robert Hall*

Benjamin Clements*

Helen R. Smyth**

ABSTRACT

Sundaland is a heterogeneous region assembled by closure of Tethyan oceans and addition of

Gondwana fragments. Basement structure

influenced Cenozoic tectonics. Understanding

Cenozoic basins requires a knowledge of the

Mesozoic and Early Cenozoic history ofSundaland which is illustrated by a new plate

tectonic reconstruction. Continental blocks riftedfrom Australia during the Late Jurassic and

Early Cretaceous are now in Borneo, Java and

Sulawesi, not West Burma. The Banda and Argo blocks collided with the SE Asian margin

between 110 and 90 Ma. At 90 Ma the Woylaintra-oceanic arc collided with the Sumatra

margin and subduction beneath Sundaland

terminated. A marked change in deep mantle

structure at about 110°E reflects different

subduction histories north of India and Australia.They were separated by a transform that was

leaky from 90 to 75 Ma and slightly convergentfrom 75 to 55 Ma. From 90 Ma, India moved

rapidly north with north-directed subduction

within Tethys and at the Asian margin. Itcollided with an intra-oceanic arc at about 55

Ma, west of Sumatra, and continued north to

collide with Asia in the Eocene. Between 90 and45 Ma Australia remained close to Antarctica

and there was no subduction beneath Sumatra

and Java. During this interval Sundaland waslargely surrounded by inactive margins with

some strike-slip deformation and extension,except for subduction beneath Sumba–Sulawesi.

At 45 Ma Australia began to move north;

subduction resumed beneath Indonesia and hascontinued to the present. The deep NW-SE

structural trend of Borneo–West Sulawesi was

either inherited from Australian basement or

* SE Asia Research Group, Royal Holloway University of

London

** CASP, University of Cambridge

Cenozoic deformation. The structure of now-

subducted ocean lithosphere influenced the

Cenozoic development of eastern Indonesiaincluding important extension that began in the

Middle Miocene in Sulawesi and led to the

formation of the Banda Arc.

INTRODUCTION

SE Asia has grown by closure of Tethyan oceans between Gondwana and Asia, principally by

migration of continental blocks rifted from the

Gondwana margins, resulting in a mosaic of blocks separated by sutures which typically

include arc and ophiolitic rocks. The former positions of many of the blocks that now make

up Asia are still uncertain. Mesozoic and older

reconstructions are based on a variety of

evidence including that from palaeomagnetism,

lithofacies, faunal provinces, ages of magmatismand dating of structural events and have many

uncertainties. Reconstructing the intervening

Tethyan oceans is difficult since they havedisappeared by subduction. However, although

there has been disagreement about the original

location, ages of rifting and arrival of blocks (cf.Audley Charles, 1988 and Metcalfe, 1988) it is

now generally accepted that the continental core

of Sundaland was assembled from an Indochina–

East Malaya block and a Sibumasu block thatseparated from Gondwana in the Palaeozoic.

They amalgamated with the South and North

China blocks in the Triassic. The widespreadPermian and Triassic granites of the Tin Belt are

the products of associated subduction and post-

collisional magmatism (Hutchison, 1989). How

far east Sundaland extended is not clear. Thearea east of the Indochina–East Malaya block is

now largely submerged or covered with youngerrocks. Hamilton (1979) drew a NE-SW line from

Java to Kalimantan as the approximate southeast

boundary of Cretaceous continental crust and

showed much of the area offshore of Sarawak as



Tertiary subduction complex, implying west

Borneo was part of Sundaland some time in theCretaceous. Metcalfe (1988, 1990, 1996)

separated a SW Borneo block from the

Indochina–East Malaya block along an

approximately N-S terrane boundary andsuggested it had a South China origin, as did his

Semitau block, and had moved south after rifting

in the Late Cretaceous, opening the proto-SouthChina Sea. Many workers, including Hamilton

(1979), Metcalfe (1988, 1990, 1996), Williams

et al. (1988) have suggested broadly south-directed subduction beneath Borneo during the

Cretaceous and Early Cenozoic and Metcalfe

(1996) shows most of the area north, east and

south of Borneo as accreted crust within which

are several small continental blocks.

There was another important episode of riftingaround northern Australia in the Jurassic

(Hamilton, 1979; Pigram & Panggabean, 1984;

Audley-Charles et al., 1988; Metcalfe, 1988;Powell et al., 1988). Several major blocks have

been interpreted to have rifted from northwest

Australia before India-Australia separation began and oceanic crust formed soon after

breakup is still preserved close to western

Australia. However, reconstructing the Indian

Ocean has proved difficult since a major part ofWharton Basin south of Java formed during the

Cretaceous Quiet Zone (Fullerton et al., 1989),

anomalies there are not well mapped, and muchof the ocean floor has been subducted at theSunda Trench. Magnetic anomalies remain off

west Australia but identifying the fragments that

rifted, leaving these anomalies, and their present position is controversial.

Luyendyk (1974) suggested that Borneo and

Sulawesi had rifted away from Australia but this

suggestion seems to have been mainly forgotten

or overlooked. A major rifted fragment was laternamed Mt Victoria Land (Veevers, 1988) or

Argoland (Powell et al., 1988). Ricou (1994)

suggested that Argoland corresponds to thePaternoster ‘plateau’ which he interpreted to

have collided with Borneo in the Paleocene.

Audley-Charles (1983, 1988) suggested

Argoland is now in south Tibet, but sinceMetcalfe (1990, 1996) it has most commonly

been identified with West Burma (Figure 1),

although this suggestion was considered byMetcalfe himself as “speculative”. Metcalfe

(1996) observed there was “as yet no convincing

evidence for the origin of this [West Burma]

block”, but correlated it with NW Australia, onthe basis of Triassic (quartz-rich) turbidites

above a pre-Mesozoic schist basement, and

speculated that the block might have provided a

source for quartz-rich sediments on Timor.Charlton (2001) preferred an Argoland in south

Tibet and suggested that West Burma wasAustralian but removed from the present Banda

Sea region (his Banda Embayment terrane) in

the Early Cretaceous. In contrast, Mitchell

(1984, 1992) argued the Triassic turbidites inBurma were deposited on the southern margin of

Asia, and Barber & Crow (2009) interpreted

West Burma as an extension of the West

Sumatra block, now separated from it by

opening of the Andaman Sea. For these authorsWest Burma has been part of SE Asia since the

Triassic.

There have been suggestions that north Sumatra

also includes continental fragments. Pulunggono& Cameron (1984) proposed that their Sikuleh

and Natal continental fragments could represent

blocks rifted from Sundaland or accreted to it.Metcalfe (1996) suggested these were

continental fragments with a NW Australian

origin. However, Barber (2000) and Barber &Crow (2005) reviewed these suggestions and

argued that there is no convincing evidence for

any microcontinental blocks accreted to the

margin of Sundaland in the Cretaceous. Theyinterpreted the Sikuleh and Natal fragments as part of the Woyla Terrane or Nappe which is an

intra-oceanic arc that was thrust onto the

Sumatran Sundaland margin in the midCretaceous. Mitchell (1993) had previously

suggested West Burma was part of the sameintra-oceanic arc thrust onto the Asian margin in

the late Early Cretaceous.

If the continental fragments rifted from theAustralian margin are not in West Burma or

Sumatra, where are they? Recent work suggests

they are now in West Sulawesi, East Java andBorneo. First we briefly summarise the

Cretaceous to Early Cenozoic tectonic character

of the Sundaland margin, the evidence for their present location of the continental fragments and

the timing of their rifting and arrival, and then

present a reconstruction that shows how these

fragments moved from Australia to SE Asia. Wethen outline some implications of the new

reconstructions.



SUBDUCTION HISTORY

Until recently reconstructions of Gondwana

breakup and Asian accretion have been largely

schematic with maps for widely spaced time

intervals (e.g. Audley-Charles et al., 1988;Metcalfe, 1988, 1990, 1996). Heine et al. (2004),

Heine & Muller (2005) and Whittaker et al.

(2007) made the first detailed reconstructions ofthe ocean basins (Figure 2) and used

hypothetical Indian ocean anomalies to speculateon aspects of the Mesozoic history of SE Asia.

The reconstructions by Heine et al. (2004) and

Heine & Muller (2005) assume that West Burma

was rifted from the Australian margin. For thereasons discussed above, this interpretation is

rejected here. In addition, the movement of the

Argo fragment from Australia to West Burma

also requires exceptionally high spreading rates(approximately 11 cm/year between 156 and 136

Ma using maps of Heine & Muller, 2005) and

ignores the Woyla intra-oceanic arc.

Most previous reconstructions have assumed

subduction at the Sumatra-Java marginthroughout the Mesozoic and Early Cenozoic.

However, although there is good evidence from

magnetic anomalies for India’s rapid northward

movement in the Late Cretaceous and EarlyCenozoic, and hence subduction to the north of

India, magnetic anomalies south of Australiaindicate very slow separation of Australia and

Antarctica until about 45 Ma (Royer & Sandwell

1989). Hence there is no requirement for

subduction beneath Indonesia, and the only wayin which subduction could have been maintained

during the Late Cretaceous and Early Cenozoicis to propose a hypothetical spreading centre

between Australia and Sundaland which moved

northward until it was subducted, as suggested

by Heine et al. (2004) Heine & Muller (2005)and Whittaker et al. (2007). Ridge subduction is

often suggested to produce slab windows

associated with volumetrically orcompositionally unusual magmatism (e.g.Thorkelson & Taylor, 1989; Hole et al., 1995;

Thorkelson, 1996; Gorring & Kay, 2001). Such

a slab window should have swept westward beneath Java and Sumatra during the Late

Cretaceous and Paleocene according to the

Whittaker et al. (2007) model, but there is no

record of magmatism of this age in Java, andalmost none in Sumatra (Hall, 2009).

P wave and S wave seismic tomography also

indicate a different subduction history north ofIndia compared to that north of Australia. In the

mantle below 700 km there is a marked

difference in structure west and east of about

100°E (Hall et al., 2008). To the west there are aseries of linear high velocity anomalies trending

roughly NW–SE interpreted as subductedremnants of Tethyan oceans by van der Voo et

al. (1999). East of 100°E there is only a broadelliptical anomaly oriented approximately NE–

SW. The position of the deep lower mantle

anomaly fits well with that expected from

Indian–Australian lithosphere subductednorthward at the Java margin since about 45 Ma,

and proto–South China Sea lithosphere

subducted southward at the north Borneo trenchsince 45 Ma, with contributions from several

other subduction zones within east Indonesia,such as those associated with the Sulu Arc, andthe Sangihe Arc. There is no evidence for a

similar series of Tethyan oceans to those

subducted north of India, consistent with the

absence of subduction during the LateCretaceous and Paleocene. Therefore, one

assumption of this reconstruction is a cessationof subduction beneath the Sundaland margin

between 90 Ma and 45 Ma (Smyth et al., 2008;

Hall et al., 2008; Hall, 2009) caused by collision

of Gondwana fragments.

CONTINENTAL FRAGMENTS ANDTHEIR PAST AND PRESENT POSITIONS

East Java–West Sulawesi and SW Borneo

There have been many suggestions that therewas a collision between a Gondwana continental

fragment and the Sundaland margin in the mid

Cretaceous (e.g. Sikumbang, 1986, 1990; Hasan,1990, 1991; Wakita et al., 1996; Parkinson et al.,

1998) with a suture located in the Meratus

region. Geochemical evidence (Elburg et al.,

2003) and zircon dating (van Leeuwen et al.,

2007) indicate continental crust may lie beneathmuch of west Sulawesi and it has an Australian

origin (van Leeuwen et al., 2007). Recent studies

in East Java show that at least the southern partof the island is underlain by continental crust

(Smyth, 2005; Smyth et al., 2007, 2008). The

igneous rocks of the Early Cenozoic SouthernMountains volcanic arc contain Archaean to

Cambrian zircons similar to those of Gondwana

crust and suggest a west Australian origin for the



fragment (Smyth et al., 2008). Continental crust

is also suggested to underlie parts of thesouthern Makassar Straits and East Java Sea

between Kalimantan and Java based on

basement rocks encountered in exploration wells

(Manur & Barraclough, 1994). Here we considerall these areas as a single fragment, East Java–

West Sulawesi, recognising that it may be a

number of smaller fragments, interpreted to haverifted from the West Australian margin, and

added to Sundaland in the mid Cretaceous at a

suture running from West Java towards theMeratus Mountains and then north (Hamilton,

1979; Parkinson et al., 1998).

The evidence for the origin of SW Borneo is

very limited. Metcalfe (1988, 1990, 1996) basedhis suggestions of an Asian origin on

palaeontological evidence from rocks found inSarawak and NW Kalimantan. There are rocks

with Cathaysian faunas and floras, but all are

found within the Kuching zone (Hutchison,2005) or NW Kalimantan Domain (Williams et

al., 1988) in, or closely associated with,

melanges and deformed ophiolites. We suggestthese rocks are not part of the SW Borneo block

but are fragments of ophiolitic and Asian

continental material accreted to it during the

Cretaceous. The SW Borneo block has itsnorthern limit at about the position of the Boyan

zone (Williams et al., 1988) and further south

there is very little to indicate its origin. Williamset al. (1988) imply that SW Borneo was part ofSundaland in the Cretaceous and intruded by

subduction-related granites formed in a

continuation of an east Asian magmatic arc. TheSchwaner Mountains are dominated by

Cretaceous igneous rocks which intrude a poorlydated metamorphic basement suggested to be

Permo-Triassic (e.g. Williams et al., 1988;

Hutchison, 2005). There are Devonian

limestones from the Telen River in the Kutai basin (Rutten, 1940) with a fauna resembling

that of Devonian limestones from the Canning

Basin (M.Fadel, pers. comm., 2009). There arealso alluvial diamonds and those from SE

Kalimantan resemble diamonds from NW

Australia (Taylor et al., 1990). SW Borneo is

interpreted here to be a continental block riftedfrom the West Australian margin, and added to

Sundaland in the Early Cretaceous. The northern

edge of the block would have been a south-dipping subduction zone as proposed by many

authors (e.g. Hamilton, 1979; Williams et al.,

1988; Tate, 1991; Hutchison, 1996; Moss,

1998). The suture is suggested to run south fromthe Natuna area along the structural lineament

named the Billiton Depression (Ben-Avraham

1973; Ben-Avraham & Emery 1973) and

originally interpreted by Ben-Avraham & Uyeda(1973) as a transform fault associated with

Cretaceous opening of the South China Sea.

The age of collision is interpreted from ages of

radiolaria in rocks associated with basic igneous

rocks that represent accreted oceanic crust andsedimentary cover (e.g. Wakita et al., 1994,

1998), the age of high pressure–low temperature

(HP–LT) metamorphic rocks in accretionary

complexes (Parkinson et al., 1998), ages of

subduction-related magmatism, ages of post-collisional rocks (Sikumbang, 1986, 1990;

Yuwono et al., 1988), and the widespread paucity of magmatism in Sumatra, Java and

Borneo after about 80 Ma until the Eocene (Hall,

2009). We suggest that the SW Borneo fragmentarrived at about 110 Ma, and the East Java–West

Sulawesi block collided at about 90 Ma.

Collision of the Woyla arc with the SumatranSundaland margin is suggested to have occurred

at the same time as the East Java–West Sulawesi

fragment docked.

Australian margin

SW Borneo is interpreted here as a blockseparated from the Banda embayment. This isconsistent with the limited evidence for its

origin, such as detrital diamonds, and its size. A

small Inner Banda block is shown on thereconstructions and is interpreted to move

mainly with the Banda block, but to have movedrelative to it during the collision of the Argo

block, and may now underlie part of Sabah and

northern West Sulawesi. This block is

speculative and could be dispensed with byallowing stretching of the main Banda block as it

rifted, and deformation after it docked, but

which is difficult to portray in a rigid platemodel.

The East Java–West Sulawesi block isinterpreted as the Argo block, consistent with

Palaeozoic to Archaean ages of zircons found in

igneous rocks in East Java, which would be

expected in detrital sediments in the offshorecontinuation of the Canning Basin, although it is

further west than proposed for West Sulawesi by



van Leeuwen et al. (2007). The age of separation

of the blocks is interpreted from theirreconstructed positions in the West Australia

margin where oceanic crust is preserved. SW

Borneo must have accreted to Sundaland before

the arrival of the East Java–West Sulawesi blocksince it is inboard of it and therefore is

interpreted to have left the Australian margin

first. Its area and shape fit well into the Bandaembayment south of the Sula Spur and north of

Timor. The East Java–West Sulawesi block is

interpreted to have separated a little later asrifting propagated west and south (Pigram &

Panggabean, 1984; Powell et al., 1988; Fullerton

et al., 1989; Robb et al., 2005) where Late

Jurassic Indian ocean crust now remains in the

Argo abyssal plain.

Indian margin

The size of Greater India remains uncertain. Ali

& Aitchison (2005) reviewed this problem andconcluded that Greater India terminated at the

Wallaby Fracture where they suggested there

was continental crust beneath the Wallaby andZenith seamounts, in contrast to others (Colwell

et al., 1994; Robb et al., 2005) who suggested

that the seamounts are basaltic. This weakens

their argument that it is possible to define thelimit of Greater India by using the Wallaby-

Zenith Fracture Zone but is nonetheless the

preferred limit of Greater India for manyauthors. In contrast, other authors have tracedGreater India as far north as the Cape Range

Fracture Zone at the southern edge of the

Exmouth Plateau (e.g. Greater India 5 of Powellet al., 1988) or to the Platypus Spur at the

northern edge of the Exmouth Plateau (e.g. Lee& Lawver, 1995). Both the Ali & Aitchison

(2005) and Lee & Lawver (1995) limits to

Greater India are shown on the reconstructions

with the area between the Wallaby-ZenithFracture Zone and the Platypus Spur coloured by

a different shade of pink.

Pacific margin

The most difficult of all the margins to

reconstruct for the Mesozoic and Early Cenozoicis that of Asia, mainly because most of the

evidence is offshore. An east-facing Andean

margin linked to Pacific subduction iscommonly assumed. There was widespread

granite magmatism in mainland eastern China

during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous.

For the earlier part of this period a subductionorigin is generally accepted but during the

Cretaceous the situation is less clear. Cretaceous

granites are known in North China but it is

debated if they were formed at a subductionmargin (e.g. Lin & Wang, 2006; Li & Li, 2007;

Yang et al., 2007). In the SE China margin Jahnet al. (1976) argued that there was a Cretaceous

(120–90 Ma) thermal episode related to west-

directed Pacific subduction. In South China

around Hong Kong acid magmatism ceased inthe Early Cretaceous (Sewell et al., 2000). It is

not known if acid magmatism continued in a belt

to the east, because this area is offshore. Early

Cretaceous granites are reported from Vietnam

(Nguyen et al. 2004; Thuy et al. 2004) withyoungest ages of 88 Ma. If these are subduction-

related it implies a trench somewhere beneaththe present South China Sea. Zhou et al. (2008)

used geophysical data to propose that a Jurassic–

Early Cretaceous subduction complex can betraced south from Taiwan along the present

northern margin of the South China Sea and was

displaced to Palawan by opening of the SouthChina Sea. This restoration of the Early

Cretaceous margin would account for

subduction-related granites in Vietnam but it isunclear where to continue this belt, or if it did

continue south.

There is little evidence anywhere of subduction-related magmatism younger than about 80 Maand the Late Cretaceous was a period of rifting

and extension of the South China margin (e.g.

Taylor & Hayes, 1983; Zhou et al., 2008).Dredged continental crust (Kudrass et al., 1986)

from the Dangerous Grounds indicates the presence of a continental basement with

Cathaysian affinities. If the suture identified by

Zhou et al. (2008) is correctly located this

suggests addition of an Asian-origin block whichZhou et al. (2008) named Cathaysia. As noted

above, many authors have suggested west or

south-directed subduction beneath north Borneoin the Late Cretaceous and Early Cenozoic (e.g.

Hamilton, 1979; Taylor & Hayes, 1983;

Williams et al., 1988; Tate, 1991) althoughnotably Moss (1998) drew attention to problems

with a subduction-related interpretation for the

Rajang Group. He suggested that subduction had

ceased by about 80 Ma after arrival of micro-continental fragments now beneath the Luconia

Shoals and Sarawak leaving a remnant ocean



and a foreland basin in northern Borneo. His

interpretation is preferred here.

It is impossible to reconcile the many different

interpretations, none of which provide

palaeogeographic reconstructions, but it isdifficult to do better simply because there is so

little evidence. In this model we have interpreted

a block similar to that of Zhou et al. (2008)although since the term Cathaysia is widely used

for South China we suggest it is named the

Dangerous Grounds block. It is arbitrarilymoved towards the Asian margin from 160 to 90

Ma to account for subduction melanges and

magmatism between South China, Vietnam and

NW Borneo.

METHODOLOGY

The reconstructions were made using the

ATLAS computer program (CambridgePaleomap Services, 1993) and a plate motion

model for the major plates as described by Hall

(2002). The model uses the Indian-Atlantichotspot frame of Müller et al. (1993) from 0 to

120 Ma and a palaeomagnetic reference frame

before 120 Ma using poles provided by A.G.

Smith (personal communication, 2001).Movements of Australia and India are from

Royer & Sandwell (1989). The model now

incorporates about 170 fragments, compared toapproximately 60 of Hall (1996) and 120 of Hall(2002). Here, the model is extended back to 160

Ma and a spreading history in the now-

subducted Tethys and Indian Oceans has beeninterpreted, based on the timing of rifting of

blocks from western Australia, now identified inSE Asia, and geological evidence from SE Asia

about timing of magmatism and collision.

On all reconstructions (Figures 3 to 10) areasfilled with green are mainly arc, ophiolitic, and

accreted material formed at plate margins. Areas

filled in cyan are submarine arc regions, hot spotvolcanic products, and oceanic plateaus.

Eurasian crust is coloured in shades of yellow.

Areas that were part of Gondwana in the Jurassic

are coloured in shades of red. To the west ofAustralia ocean currently remaining Cretaceous

ocean crust is shown in shades of blue; Jurassic

and other oceanic crust older than 120 Ma isshaded green. The northern limit of Greater

India 1 is the Wallaby-Zenith Fracture Zone

which is the limit to Greater India advocated by

Ali & Aitchison (2005), and is almost the sameas that used by Hall (2002). The northern limit

of Greater India 2 is aligned with the Platypus

Spur at the northern edge of the Exmouth

Plateau as suggested by Lee & Lawver (1995).The Greater India 5 suggested by Powell et al.

(1988) is at the Cape Range Fracture Zone at thesouthern edge of the Exmouth Plateau and is

approximately midway between these two

suggestions. Two symbols are shown in western

Australia on all the reconstructions: the yellowsquare labelled Pil is the northern edge of the

Archaean Pilbara block, and the white diamond

labelled Kim is the Kimberley diamond area.

RECONSTRUCTIONS

160 Ma to 110 Ma

Rifting in the Banda and Argo regions began atabout 160 Ma (Fullerton et al., 1989), possibly

due to initiation of south-directed subduction at

the north Gondwana margin. The rifting isinterpreted to have begun earlier in the east, and

propagated west (Figure 3). The reconstructions

use the simplest possible interpretation of oceancrust formation, generally with symmetrical

spreading. The orientation and age of the

magnetic anomalies was inferred from preserved

oceanic crust close to western Australia, and therequirement that the Banda and Argo fragmentsarrive at the Sundaland margin at 110 Ma and 90

Ma. This is essentially an Occam’s Razor

approach. It is possible that the actual history ofspreading was more complicated. South of the

Exmouth Plateau there is evidence for a complexhistory of spreading between about 132 Ma and

120 Ma (Figure 4) and there were repeated ridge

jumps to the continent–ocean boundary. If the

discovery of possible Late Jurassic anomalies inthe Wharton Basin (Barckhausen et al., 2008)

proves correct a more complex model will be

required although the age of ocean crust could be accounted for by relatively small

modifications to the model here, such as another

early India-Australia ridge jump, asymmetricalspreading at the mid-ocean ridge, or a small shift

in the position of the transform boundary that

developed after 90 Ma (see below).

No old oceanic crust is preserved in the Bandaembayment so the initial movement of the Banda

fragment is determined by the orientation and



size of the Sula Spur, and implies a re-

orientation of the spreading direction at about150 Ma. The movement of the Argo fragment is

determined by the preserved magnetic anomalies

of the Argo abyssal plain and the assumption of

symmetrical spreading.

After separation of the Argo block the spreading

centre propagated west along the Greater Indiacontinent–ocean boundary to form the Woyla

Arc (Figure 3). The Woyla Arc is an LateJurassic–Early Cretaceous intra-oceanic arc

(Barber et al., 2005) estimated to have begun to

form at about 160 Ma and to have collided with

the Sumatra margin between 98 and 92 Ma (M.J.

Crow, pers. comm., 2008). This arc is speculatedto have continued west into another intra-

oceanic arc, here named the Incertus (Latin:

uncertain) Arc. A possible candidate for this arcis the Zedong terrane of southern Tibet

(Aitchison et al., 2007b) which is an intra-

oceanic arc formed in the Late Jurassic.

India began to separate from Australia at about

140 Ma (Figure 4). Oceanic crust remains offwest Australia today. There were a series of

ridge jumps (Robb et al., 2005) before the

inferred final spreading centre was establishedclose to the former Indian continent–ocean

boundary at 125 Ma. From 125 Ma the spreading

is assumed to have been symmetrical. The new

spreading centre between Australia and Indiaimplies a ridge-ridge-ridge triple junction with

the three spreading centres active until 110 Ma.

110 Ma to 90 Ma

The Woyla Arc and the Banda and Argo blocks

moved northwards as the subduction hinge

rolled back and the ocean south of them (TethysIII of Metcalfe, 1990; Ceno-Tethys of Metcalfe,

1996) widened (Figure 5). At 110 Ma the Banda

block finally collided with the Sundaland marginat the Billion Depression suture of Ben-Avraham(1973) which was the continuation of an

approximately NE-SE transform. The age of

arrival of this block, which became SW Borneo,is extremely uncertain. The block must have

arrived earlier than the East Java–West Sulawesi

block which was in place by about 90 Ma. There

is discontinuity in radiolaria ages in cherts fromthe Lubok Antu melange from Sarawak during

the Aptian-Albian (Jasin, 2000) which suggests

an interval between 125 and 100 Ma.

After collision of the SW Borneo block a new

subduction zone was initiated on its south side

which closed the ocean that remained betweenthe Woyla Arc–Argo and Sumatra–SW Borneo

(Figure 6). The Early Cretaceous active marginran from Burma through Sumatra into West Java

and continued northeast through SE Borneo into

West Sulawesi marked by ophiolites and HP–LT

subduction-related metamorphic rocks in CentralJava, the Meratus Mountains of SE Borneo and

West Sulawesi (Hamilton, 1979; Mitchell, 1993;

Parkinson et al., 1998). K-Ar ages of HP–LT

metamorphic rocks compiled by Parkinson et al.

(1998) from the Luk Ulo complex, Java rangefrom 124 to 110 Ma, and those from the Meratus

from 119-108 Ma, suggest subduction wasunderway on the south side of the SW Borneo

block by 108 Ma, thus indicating an older

collision. The 110 Ma age chosen is arbitrary butthere is no significant difference to the model if

an older age such as 120 Ma is used.

90 Ma change

The intra-oceanic Woyla Arc collided with theSumatran margin in the mid Cretaceous

(Figure 6) adding arc and ophiolitic rocks to the

southern margin of Sumatra (Barber et al., 2005)

at the same time as the Argo fragment accretedto form East Java (Smyth et al., 2008) and WestSulawesi (van Leeuwen et al., 2007). The age of

this collision is inferred to be approximately 90

Ma, although the collision could have beendiachronous, and any age between about 92 to

80 Ma is possible, as indicated by ages of chertsin melanges (e.g. Wakita et al., 1994, 1998) and

beginning of a widespread hiatus in magmatism

(e.g. Williams et al., 1988; McCourt et al., 1996;

Barber et al., 2005, Hall, 2009). The inferredsuture is a transpressional strike-slip boundary in

the region of the present Meratus Mountains.

The collision also coincides with the cessation of

acid magmatism in Vietnam (Nguyen et al.,

2004) and the interpreted change to extensional

tectonics in the South China margin (e.g. Zhouet al., 2008). The speculative Dangerous

Grounds block became part of the Asia margin

at about 90 Ma (Figure 6). It is from this timethat Sundaland is suggested to have become an

almost completely elevated and emergent



continental region surrounded by inactive

margins.

The most important change at 90 Ma was the

termination of subduction beneath Sundaland

which did not resume until 45 Ma. Further west,north of India, there was also a change in the

subduction boundary to the south side of the

Incertus Arc with a polarity flip from SW- to NE-dipping. Although there was no subduction

beneath Sumatra and Java between 90 and 45

Ma, India moved rapidly north, especially fromabout 80 Ma, with north-directed subduction

within Tethys and at the Asian margin. The

difference in movement of Australia and India

was accommodated by a transform boundary.

90 to 45 Ma

The Indian and Australian plates were separated

by a broadly transform boundary from about 90

to 45 Ma (Figures 6 to 9) suggested to be theeastern “end of Tethys” from 90 Ma. It is

important to note that this is not a device created

for the model but a prediction that follows fromthe India-Australia plate motions determined by

Royer & Sandwell (1989). Between 90 and 75

Ma the boundary is almost pure strike-slip with

very slight extension of the order of a few 10s ofkilometres: a leaky transform (Figure 6 and 7).

From 75 to 55 Ma the boundary was convergent

(Figure 8), with the amount of convergenceincreasing northwards from about 10°S. This

implies either subduction of the Indian Plate beneath Australia or vice-versa. The amount is

small and would have been approximately 500

km at the northern end of the transform boundary. Since this region of the Indian and

Australia plates was entirely subducted beneath

north Sumatra before 10 Ma it is impossible to

know what was the polarity of this subduction

zone. However, it is possible that its finalremnants could be the enigmatic N-S striking

slab dipping steeply east that lies beneath Burma

(Ni et al., 1989; Satyabala, 1998, 2000; Guzman-Speziale & Ni, 2000) implying India subducted

beneath Australia.

The reconstructions also account for the very

early ages suggested for India-Asia collision (55

Ma or older) by collision between the Incertusintra-oceanic arc and the northern margin of

Greater India (Figure 8). Arc-continent collision

terminated subduction at this position, the arc

was carried north with India and is now in Tibet

as the Zedong terrane (Aitchison et al., 2007b).The subducted slab broke off, was over-ridden

by India, and the slab has now sunk deep in the

lower mantle where is visible as the prominent

linear anomaly trending NW–SE (van der Voo etal., 1999; Hall et al., 2008).

Because all the crust south of Sundaland is

oceanic and has been subducted it has been

difficult to judge the character of the Late

Cretaceous–Paleocene Sundaland margins because there are no anomalies and there is little

geological evidence on land. Many authors (e.g.

Audley-Charles et al. 1988; Metcalfe, 1988,

1990, 1996; Barber et al., 2005) have depicted

subduction schematically, or assumed it forreconstructions older than 45 Ma (e.g. Lee &

Lawver, 1995; Hall, 1996, 2002). As discussedabove, Heine et al (2004), Heine & Muller

(2005) and Whittaker et al. (2007) have made

reconstructions using hypothetical Indian Oceananomalies (Figure 2) but their predictions of the

nature of the Sumatra and Java boundaries are

inconsistent with the geology of Indonesia. Onewould generally expect significant igneous

activity to accompany subduction, and during

periods of slab window subduction there should be a record of abundant and possibly

compositionally unusual magmatism. It would

be unusual for igneous activity to cease for 35

million years along a subduction boundary morethan 2000 km in length. However, the period 80to 45 Ma is marked by an almost complete

absence of a volcanic and plutonic record in Java

and Sumatra. Furthermore, the Whittaker et al.(2007) model predicts quite different intervals of

extension and compression in the Sundalandmargins from those observed, for example in

Java the interval of 60 to 50 Ma “corresponds

with a known period of extension” when this is a

period with almost no geological record in Java,and they observe themselves that their

“reconstructions from 50 Ma show an advancing

upper plate in Sumatra suggesting that acompressive regime should have existed,

however extension is observed from geological

evidence”.

The predictions of the model presented here for

the Sundaland margins of Indonesia are very

different. For the period 90 Ma to 45 Ma therotation model is no different from that of Hall

(2002), but with the addition of the hypothetical



anomalies that were constructed from the

inferred movement of the Banda–Argo–Woyla blocks it is possible to see and examine the

implications for the Sundaland margins. Around

most of Sundaland, except north of Sumatra,

there was no subduction during most of this period. Australia was not moving north and there

was an inactive margin south of Sumatra and

Java until 70 Ma (Figure 7). Thus, no significantigneous activity is expected. There could have

been some subduction in north Sumatra, west of

the India–Australia transform boundary, wherethere is a record of minor Paleocene volcanic

activity (Crow, 2005). From 70 Ma the model

predicts slight extension until 65 Ma and then

significant dextral strike-slip motion at the

Sumatra and Java margin. Further east it predicts NW-directed subduction beneath Sumba and

West Sulawesi between 63 Ma and 50 Ma(Figure 8). In the latest Cretaceous and

Paleocene there was calc-alkaline volcanism in

Sumba and West Sulawesi which has beeninterpreted as subduction-related (e.g. van

Leeuwen 1981; Hasan 1990; Abdullah et al.,

2000; Elburg et al., 2002; see Hall, 2009, forreview) which fits well with the model.

It is difficult to interpret how this latest

Cretaceous and Paleocene NW-directedsubduction zone continued north into the Pacific.

It is possible there was a west-dipping

subduction system very far from the Asianmargin where extension is recorded. There aremany small Late Cretaceous volcanic arc

fragments in places from Halmahera (Hall et al.,

1988), the Philippines (e.g. Lewis et al., 1982;Karig, 1983), the Philippine Sea (Klein &

Kobayashi, 1981; Tokuyama, 1985) toKamchatka (Levashova et al., 1998). At the

moment it is impossible to reconstruct the

Cretaceous–Paleocene West Pacific in detail but

it is clear that there were many intra-oceanic arcswithin the Pacific basin.

45 Ma to present

For the period after 45 Ma (Figure 9), there are

no major differences between the model

presented here and that of Hall (2002). Thereconstruction of the Proto-South China Sea has

changed slightly to incorporate new information.

The Luconia shelf is interpreted to have been inits present position relative to Sarawak but there

must have been some relative movement within

the Dangerous Grounds block to allow

subduction of the Proto-South China Sea between the Eocene and Early Miocene, perhaps

along the West Baram line (cf. Clift et al., 2008).

The deeper rift structures in Sarawak and

offshore Sarawak indicate that the Luconia shelfwas part of Sundaland by the Eocene

(Hutchison, 2005). There are also smalldifferences in the reconstruction of the Celebes

Sea and its subduction history to allow for

northward subduction beneath the Sulu Arc

(Hall & Wilson, 2000; Hutchison et al., 2000).The north Makassar Straits are interpreted to be

underlain by continental not oceanic crust (Hall

et al., 2009).

The reconstruction of the Banda region has beenimproved, based on detailed identification of

ocean floor anomalies (Hinschberger et al.,2000, 2001). The structure of the now-subducted

ocean floor south of Indonesia, and that of the

rifted NW Australian margin, probablyinfluenced the development of the region. The

oldest oceanic crust in the southern ocean

remained in the Banda embayment within theAustralian plate and had formed as the Banda

block rifted from Australia in the Late Jurassic.

At about 15 Ma (Figure 10) this old oceaniccrust arrived at the Java Trench and the trench

propagated east at the continent-ocean boundary

along the northern edge of the embayment. The

remaining oceanic lithosphere then fell awayinto the mantle and the subduction hinge rolled back into the embayment. This caused major

extension in the Australia–SE Asia convergent

zone, beginning in Sulawesi and continuing east,leading to the present complexities of the Banda

Arc. Oceanic crust older than 120 Ma iscoloured on the figures. The discontinuity

between spreading orientation north of NW

Australia is important as it was the place where

the Banda slab roll-back began. This explainsvery well why there is a discontinuity between

normal subduction in the Sunda Arc and roll-

back in the Banda Arc.

DISCUSSION

The SW Borneo–Sundaland boundary is the

Billiton depression (Ben-Avraham, 1973) and

was a major strike-slip suture (Figures 5 and 6).

The east boundary of the SW Borneo block isalso a strike-slip boundary with the Pacific from

140 to 90 Ma, and the mainly strike-slip



character of the boundary with E Java–West

Sulawesi during the final stages of convergence before 90 Ma may explain why the Meratus

suture has been reactivated as an elongate

mountain belt resembling a flower structure

within SE Kalimantan.

There have been many previous suggestions of

Gondwana continental crust beneath WestSulawesi. We propose that East Java, SW

Borneo, and possibly parts of Sabah, may also

be underlain by continental crust of Australianorigin. This proposal provides two possible

explanations for the deep structural trends, now

oriented approximately NW-SE, that are often

identified across the whole of Borneo and

commonly traced southeastwards into Sulawesiand north towards the Dangerous Grounds.

Many of these features show no sign of having been active faults during most of the Cenozoic,

some may have been reactivated at intervals

during the Cenozoic and most are not activefaults at present, although they are commonly

represented in this way. However, they do

appear to have influenced the development ofthe region during the Cenozoic, and there are

indications of changing basement character,

depth to basement and changes in sedimentary

thicknesses across them. One possibleexplanation for them is that they are basement

structures inherited from Australia where there

are deep and old structures that can be tracedoffshore across the NW Shelf and westernAustralia. An alternative, or additional,

explanation is that these faults were active

during the phase of Late Cretaceous–Paleocenesubduction beneath Sumba and West Sulawesi

(Figure 8). Their orientation means that theymay have formed or been reactivated at this

stage as they are parallel to the convergence

direction. From 45 Ma there was a change in

convergence direction as Australia began tomove north and their orientation would have

meant that movement on them ceased. This

would explain why they influence laterdevelopment but, in most cases, do not appear to

have been active structures during most of the

Cenozoic.

The Walanae Fault in SW Sulawesi appears to

be another fundamental structure, in this case

formed at or close to the continental marginwhich from the Late Eocene to Early Miocene

was a transform boundary (Figure 9) in our

model, an interpretation supported by geological

evidence from South Sulawesi (T.M. vanLeeuwen, pers. comm., 2007). The

reconstructions show that this fault may be

traced north along the Sundaland margin and this

became the Palu-Koro Fault. We suggest that both of these are ancient faults that have been

repeatedly reactivated, as appears to be the casefor many other major faults in Indochina and

East Asia.

The great age of ocean crust in the Bandaembayment induced massive extension in

eastern Indonesia when it arrived at the Java

Trench in the Miocene (Figure 10). There are

many manifestations of this, including

magmatism from western Sulawesi eastwards,metamorphic ages in the Banda Arc,

development of young ocean basins, anddevelopment of the enigmatic and exceptionally

deep basin of the Weber Deep. We suggest that

Sulawesi geology is open to a reinterpretationinvolving important extension from the Middle

Miocene, which caused crustal thinning before

the Pliocene thickening which continues today,and which led to the formation of the inter-arm

basins of Gorontalo Bay and Bone Gulf.

CONCLUSIONS

In our model there is no continental West Burma

block. The Argo and Banda blocks account forthe areas of continental crust rifted from theAustralian margin and fit well into the areas

where there is now evidence for continental

basement in Indonesia. The East Java–WestSulawesi block is not underlain by Archaean

basement as suggested by Smyth et al. (2007,2008) but by sediments (up to Triassic age)

derived from Archaean, Proterozoic and

Palaeozoic basement in western Australia. This

better accounts for the range of ages in thezircon data and with the existence of long-lived

structures and pathways feeding sediment to the

offshore Canning Basin.

The Woyla Arc initiated close to the northern

edge of India. If the initial rifting did occuralong the continent–ocean boundary there could

be some small microcontinental fragments

brought north with it, such as Sikuleh and Natal,

but this is not a requirement and we followBarber & Crow (2005) in assuming there are

none. The arc collided with the Sumatra margin



at about 90 Ma. The life of the Woyla arc fits

well with what is known of its history (M.J.Crow, pers. comm., 2008) and this feature of our

model could be tested by palaeomagnetism as

suggested by Barber et al. (2005).

The continuation of the Woyla Arc into our

proposed Incertus Arc fits very well with the

position of the major linear high velocityanomaly in the deep mantle interpreted as a

subduction zone that India has passed over (van

de Voo, 1999; Aitchison et al., 2007a; Hall et al.,2008). The 90 Ma collision of the Woyla arc in

Sumatra caused a reversal of arc polarity and a

change in subduction direction which then led

India to collide with the arc at about 55 Ma, at

the time identified by Leech et al. (2005) butwhich was not the India–Asia collision they

inferred. This came later at a time that remainsthe subject of dispute (e.g. Rowley, 1996;

Aitchison et al., 2007a)

The 90 Ma collisions of the Woyla Arc and the

Argo block terminated subduction at most of the

Sundaland margins. Dynamic topographicresponses to the termination of subduction and

collisional thickening both contributed to

creating a large elevated and emergent continent

from the mid Cretaceous, increasing the area ofSundaland which had been emergent from the

Late Triassic. The period from about 90 to 45

Ma was mainly a time of erosion, non-deposition, and sediment recycling. Subductiondid not resume until 45 Ma, as Australia began

to move north, and sedimentary basins began to

form across the region in response to the newregional stresses (Hall & Morley, 2004; Hall,

2009) that then developed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are especially grateful to the consortium of

oil companies who have supported our projects

in SE Asia for many years. We thank colleaguesin Indonesia at the Pusat Survei Geologi

Bandung, Lemigas, Indonesian Institute of

Sciences, and Institut Teknologi Bandung, and

many colleagues in the UK, Europe and SEAsia. We thank Alan Smith and Lawrence Rush

for assistance with reconstruction problems, and

Mike Audley-Charles, Tony Barber, MikeCottam, Mike Crow, Charles Hutchison, Mike

Sullivan and Theo van Leeuwen for suggestions

and discussion of many of the ideas in this

paper.

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Figure 1 – Reconstructions at 165 Ma and 80 Ma modied from Wakita & Metcalfe (2005). These

interpret the Argo block as rifted from the NW Australian margin in the Late Jurassic and

added to Asia as the West Burma block in the Cretaceous. SW Borneo is interpreted as

separated from Asia during the Cretaceous by formation of the Proto-South China Sea

(Proto SCS).



Figure 2 – A. Reconstruction at 150 Ma modied from Heine & Muller (2005). The West Burma and

Sikuleh blocks are interpreted as rifted from NW Australia in the Late Jurassic and added

to SE Asia in the Cretaceous. Abbreviations are: BE Banda Embayment, BH Bird’s Head,

ExP Exmouth Plateau, M Meratus Block, ScP Scott Plateau, WB West Burma. B.

Reconstruction at 75–70 Ma modied from Whittaker et al. (2007) shows the NE-SW

spreading centre interpreted to have been subducted beneath the SE Asia promontory

between 70 and 20 Ma as it moved west. NE arrows indicate India plate motion and

WSW arrows show Sundaland motion for the 75–70 Ma interval. Colour indicates

inferred age of ocean crust.



Figure 3 – Reconstruction at 150 Ma. The Banda blocks had separated forming the Banda

embayment and leaving the Sula Spur. The Argo block separated slightly later

accompanied by a reorientation of spreading in the Banda embayment. Spreading

propagated west and followed a line which may have been the continent-ocean boundary

of Greater India 2 to form the Woyla Arc. The arc and continental fragments moved away

from the Gondwana margins as the subduction hinge rolled back.



Figure 4 – Reconstruction at 135 Ma. India had begun to separate from Australia which still remained

xed to Antarctica. Spreading in the Ceno-Tethys was predominantly oriented NW-SE

and the Banda, Argo blocks and the Woyla Arc moved towards SE Asia as the Ceno-Tethys

widened. ExP Exmouth Plateau, Pil Pilbara, Kim Kimberley.



Figure 5 – Reconstruction at 110 Ma. There were numerous ridge jumps as India separated from

Australia. The Argo block docked with Sundaland along a strike-slip suture at the BillitonDepression. Spreading at the Ceno-Tethys NW-SE mid-ocean ridge ceased and the NE-

SW India-Australia spreading centre propagated north. West of the triple junction south

of the Argo block there was subduction of the older Ceno-Tethys. There was also

subduction south of Sumatra and SW Borneo.



Figure 6 – Reconstruction at 90 Ma. The Argo block docked with SW Borneo along the strike-slip

Meratus suture, forming East Java and West Sulawesi, and the Woyla Arc docked withthe Sumatra margin of Sundaland. The collisions terminated subduction. However,

India continued to move north by subduction beneath the Incertus Arc which required

formation of a broadly N-S transform boundary between the Indian and Australian plates.

Australia began to separate from Antarctica but at a very low rate.



Figure 7 – Reconstruction at 70 Ma. India was now moving rapidly north with rapid spreading to

the south. There were large offsets of the ridge by transform faults, some of which arestill preserved in the Wharton Basin between the 90E Ridge and the Investigator Fracture.

There was no signicant relative motion between Australia and Sundaland and no

subduction beneath Sumatra and Java.



Figure 8 – Reconstruction at 55 Ma. Australia–Sundaland motion was slightly convergent causing

subduction along the eastern Sundaland margin beneath Sumba and West Sulawesi. Thissubduction may have continued north outboard of the Asian margin. The Australian–

Sundaland plate boundary was a dextral strike-slip zone south of Java and was a

transtensional strike-slip zone south of Sumatra. The Incertus Arc and the northern

margin of Greater India had collided and the arc was carried north on the Indian Plate.



Figure 9 – Reconstruction at 45 Ma. Australia began to move rapidly away from Antarctica. Australia

and India became part of a single plate, possibly reecting the earliest India and Asiacontact, but alternatively as a result of changes in plate motions in the Pacic. At about

this time there were arc-continent collisions in New Guinea, and major changes in the

West Pacic, forming marginal basins such as the Celebes Sea and Philippine Sea. South-

directed subduction of the Proto-South China Sea began below Borneo.



Figure 10 – Reconstruction at 15 Ma. Ocean crust older than 120 Ma remained in the Banda

embayment and arrived at the Java trench causing the trench to move eastwards along thecontinent–ocean boundary south of the Sula Spur. Almost all of this crust had been

subducted except the area with many anomalies in the Argo abyssal plain and off western

Australia.

Documents

Hall Etal 2009 IPA SE Asia Reconstruction