Stratigraphic constraints on suture models for eastern Indonesia

Abstract

Although collision in eastern Indonesia is now accreting the Australian continent to Southeast Asia, the small North and South Banda oceanic basins within the suture zone are interpreted as Late Cenozoic extensional features. Stratigraphic columns from the surrounding islands conform to one of three generalised patterns, two of which can be related to the margins of SE Asia (Sundaland) and the Australian continent, respectively. The third system, which is dominant in the outer Banda Arc and eastern Sulawesi, is associated with a microcontinent that was rifted from Australia in the Jurassic, drifted northwards ahead of Australia in the Cretaceous and collided with the Sundaland Margin in the Paleogene. Subsequent collapse of the resulting collision orogen led to rapid extension and the formation of the Banda Sea behind the Outer Banda Arc thrust belt. Eastern Indonesia thus duplicates a pattern familiar in the Mediterranean. The Tertiary compressional structures of the region cannot be explained solely in terms of the most recent collision, which began only in the Pliocene.