Tertiary arc rifting in northern Luzon, Philippines

Abstract

The North Luzon terrane (NLT), comprising the section of Luzon north of the Philippine Fault, is one of the largest arc terranes in the Philippine Archipelago. Numerous features suggest that the NLT is a late Oligocene to early Miocene analogue for the processes in the modern intra‐arc rift zone at the northern end of the Mariana Trough. First, the NLT has bifurcating magmatic arcs sharing similar magmatic histories. These include the Northern Sierra Madre (NSM) and Cordillera Central (CC) magmatic arcs, which are separated by the Cagayan basin but which are linked in the Caraballo Range to the south. The rock record indicates that the NSM, CC, and Caraballo Ranges were active arcs in late Eocene to late Oligocene time. Second, seismic reflection and well data indicate that the Cagayan basin formed by extensional faulting in late Oligocene to early Miocene time. Third, alkalic arc magmatism, recognized to be a precursor of intra‐arc rifting in modern settings, occurred at the juncture of the NSM and CC arcs in late Oligocene to early Miocene time. Fourth, oceanic crust, represented by the Itogon ophiolite, formed at the southwestern end of the Cagayan basin in late Oligocene to early Miocene time. Major and trace element chemistry show that the Itogon sheeted dikes have tholeiitic arc and backarc basin basalt affinities. The rock record and geophysical offshore data suggest that the NLT was developing in an island arc system above the subducting West Philippine plate in late Eocene time. Rifting occurred in the island arc from late Oligocene to early Miocene time but did not mature into backarc spreading, most likely because of the collision of the Benham Rise, a basaltic rise in the West Philippine basin, with the NLT. The arc rifting in the NLT may be another manifestation of the extensional tectonism that affected most of Southeast Asia in late Oligocene to early Miocene time, during which the South China and Southeast Sulu basins formed. Subsequent to arc rifting, the history of the NLT has been linked to the subduction of the South China plate along the Manila Trench. The structural history of the Cagayan basin and magmatic history of the southern CC suggest that the subduction in the Manila Trench at the latitude of the NLT began about 15 Ma.