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Charlton 1991
Charlton 1991
Introduction
The Kai archipelago, eastern Indonesia, is located at
the eastern extremity of the Banda Arc, at the apex of
an island arc system which bends through 180 (Figure
1). Reconnaissance geological and geophysical
fieldwork carried out in the Kai islands in 1987 by
London University and the Indonesian Geological
Research and Development Centre (GRDC) has led to
a significant reappraisal of this eastern segment of the
Banda Arc, and of the adjacent Aru Trough and Weber
Basin.
The Banda Arc is situated in an area of interaction
between three of the earth's major crustal plates: the
Indo-Australian, Eurasian and Pacific plates (Figure 1).
It is a highly anomalous arc system, with old, probably
Mesozoic oceanic crust located on the inner side of the
arc, and Australian continental crust bordering the
outer bathymetric trough around the complete 180
bend of the arc. The outer trough can be divided into
four segments: the Timor, Tanimbar, Aru and Seram
Troughs anticlockwise around the arc. In cross-section,
the Timor, Tanimbar and Seram Troughs have many of
the structural characteristics of subduction trenches,
and have generally been interpreted in terms of
*Present address: 342l Canoncita Lane. Piano. TX 75023, USA
0264-8172/91/010062-08
1991 Butterworth-Heinemann ktd
62
I ~
-~
\ ~
PACIFIC OCEAN
o~-
+cc.:".," /
~
- ,o~
?" ~
o~...-i _Zo@
'"~-t~
INDIAN C~EAN
T*N'MB*";yJ, e~O'I
~,<o~
t ~
"
.,A~U,. s..,,
,o:-
'
//r~
AUSTRALIA
"
] 120E
Figure 1 Location of the Kai archipelago in the Banda Arc, eastern Indonesia
0
I
km
I
I
,-, . . . .
uepms in Km
30
t
[
1
~
~
"
"
:
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EASTERN PROVINCE
CENTRAL PROVINCE
, .~Q / V/JKAI"
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~ , h - ~ ~,,/jua~\
:
L___~_~,a/
"~"L TAYANDU
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,,
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//KECILI ." /
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Figure 2 Location map of the Kai islands showing bathymetry (in km) and location of the line of section in Figure 5
M a r i n e a n d P e t r o l e u m G e o l o g y , 1991, Vol 8, F e b r u a r y
63
["
km
10
MUN
seep
ELAT
WETUAR
No Pliocen~
(cf. Achdan
& Turkandi~
KAI
BESAR
I lat Formation
(Eocene)
Normal fault
65
et al.
Western province
High grade metamorphic rocks (silicic schists, gneiss
and migmatite; Bowin et al., 1980; Achdan and
Turkandi, 1982) outcrop on the islands of Kur and
Fadol in the western geological province of Kai. They
are found together with Late Miocene-Pliocene
claystone and sandstone (Bowin et al., 1980) and
Quaternary reef. The nature of the contact between the
metamorphics and the Miocene sediments (structural
or stratigraphic) has not been recorded.
The western province of Kai is interpreted as the
innermost part of the west Kai forearc complex. The
acid metamorphic rocks are probably Australian
continental basement emplaced by thrusting on to the
imbricated Australian cover sequence of the central
Kai province. The metamorphics of western Kai
probably occupy a similar structural position to the
Kobipoto Complex on Scram (Audley-Charles et al.,
1979; Tjokrosapoetro and Budhitrisna, 1982).
The western boundary of the west Kai geological
province is the east flank of the Weber Basin (Figure 2).
The boundary between the Kai block, which is
~o
o 200-
.100
-<
(D
0
W
"~
201
EsBEN
R
KUR
4oj
'
I"AYANDU
MESOZOIC- PALEOGENE
KAI BESAR
KAI KECIL
_~
L_ i
J.
NEOGENE
ARe,Roeo.[
MANTLE
j
0
I
km
I
50
I
Figure 5 Crustal-scale cross-section through the Kai islands from the Weber Basin to the Aru islands (Arafura Shelf)
66
ARU iSLANDS
67
93
92
km
10
J
j l
II
Figure 6 Line drawings of seismic sections across the Tanimbar Trough (from Schluter and Fritsch, 1985). Note the increasing
extension from south to north
68
1).
Conclusions
The apparent continuity of geological structures around
the Banda Arc is not as simple as first impressions
= _-
Figure7
Comparison of the tectonics of the Banda Arc (a) with the strain pattern around a fold (b) from Dieterich, 1969 via Hobbs eta/.,
1976. Shaded area in (a) is the volcanic arc. Short lines in (b) are parallel to the long axes of strain ellipses at those points. Note the two
zones of E-W extension (the Aru Trough and the Weber Basin) at the eastern apex of the arc, and the corresponding zones of extension
in the fold
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Tony Barber (Royal Holloway and Bedford
New College, London University) for useful
discussions; to Herman Sugilar and Zainal Hayat
(GRDC) who worked with us in Kai, and to GRDC
(former Director Dr M. Untung; present Director Dr
R. Sukamto) for logistical arrangements. The fieldwork
was sponsored by Union Texas (SE Asia) Inc. and
Idemitsu Oil Development Co., with special thanks to
Haydn Rickard (UTSEA) for discussions and support.
Thanks to Janet Baker and Colin Stewart for the
artwork.
References
Achdan, A. and Turkandi, T. (1982) Preliminary geologic map of
the Kai (Tayandu and Tual) Quadrangles, Maluku, 1:250,000,
and accompanying GRDC Open File Report
Audley-Charles, M. G. (1986) Rates of Neogene and Quaternary
tectonic movements in the southern Banda Arc based on
micropaleontology J. GeoL Soc. Lond. 143, 161-175
Audley-Charles, M. G., Carter, D. J., Barber, A. J., Norvick, M. S.
and Tjokrosapoetro, S. (1979) Reinterpretation of the
geology of Seram: implications for the Banda Arcs and
northern Australia J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 136, 547-568
Barber, A. J., Tjokrosapoetro, S. and Charlton, T. R. (1986) Mud
volcanoes, shale diapirs, wrench faults and melanges in
accretionary complexes, eastern Indonesia Bull. Am. Assoc.
Petrol. GeoL 70, 1729-1741
69