Structure and deformation of north and central Malaita, Solomon Islands: tectonic implications for the Ontong Java Plateau-Solomon arc collision, and for the fate of oceanic plateaus

Abstract

The island of Malaita, Solomon Islands, represents the obducted southern margin of the Ontong Java Plateau (OJP). The basement of Malaita formed during the first and possibly largest plateau-building magmatic event at ∼122 ± 3 Ma. It subsequently drifted passively northwards amassing a 1–2 km thickness of pelagic sediment overburden. A major change in OJP tectonics occurred during the Eocene, possibly initiated by the OJP passing over the Samoan or Raratongan hotspot. Extension facilitated increased sedimentation and basin formation (e.g., the Faufaumela basin) and provided readily available deep-crustal pathways for alkali basalt and subsequent Oligocene alnöite magmas, with related hydrothermal activity producing limited Ag + Pb mineralisation. Eocene to Mid-Miocene sediments record the input of arc-derived turbiditic volcaniclastic sediment indicating the relative closeness of the OJP to the Solomon arc. The initial collision of the OJP and Solomon arc at 25-20 Ma was of a ‘soft docking’ variety and did not result in major compressive deformation on Malaita. South-directed subduction of the Pacific Plate briefly ceased at this time but resumed intermittently on a local scale from ∼15 Ma. Subduction of the Australian Plate beneath the Solomon arc commenced at ∼8-7 Ma. Increased coupling between the Solomon arc and the OJP led to the gradual emergence of the OJP at 6-5 through to 4 Ma. The most intense period of compressive to transpressive deformation recorded on Malaita is stratigraphically bracketed at between 4 and 2 Ma, resulting in estimated crustal shortening of between 24 and 46%, and the inclusion of between 1 and 4 km of basement OJP basalts within the larger anticlines. Basement and cover sequences are deformed together in a coherent geometry and there are no major decollement surfaces; the large asymmetrical fold structures of Malaita are likely to be the tip regions of blind thrusts with detachment surfaces between 1 and 4 km beneath the cover sequence. Mid-Pliocene deformation records the detachment of the upper parts of the OJP, with initial material movement direction towards the northeast and later obduction of an upper allochthonous block of the OJP southwestwards over the Solomon arc. A model is presented whereby an upper 5–10-km-thick flake of the OJP is obducted over the Solomon arc to form the Malaita