1 s2.0 S0040195104001362 Main

Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 9 36
www.elsevier.com/locate/tecto
Plate kinematics, origin and tectonic emplacement

of supra-subduction ophiolites in SE Asia
Manuel Pubelliera,*, Christophe Monnierb, Rene Mauryc, R. Tamayod
a
CNRS UMR 8538, Laboratoire de Geologie, Ecole Normale Superieure, 24 rue Lhomond, F-75231 Paris, France
b
Laboratoire de Planetologie et Geodynamique, UMR-CNRS 6112, Universite de Nantes,
2 rue de la Houssiniere BP 92208,44322 Nantes Cedex, France
c
Laboratoire de Petrologie-Geochimie, Universite de Bretagne Occidentale, 9, avenue Le Gorgeu, 29285, Brest, France
d
National Institute of Geological Sciences, College of Science, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, 1101, Philippines
Available online 18 September 2004
Abstract
A unique feature of the Circum Pacific orogenic belts is the occurrence of ophiolitic bodies of various sizes, most of which
display petrological and geochemical characteristics typical of supra-subduction zone oceanic crust. In SE Asia, a majority of
the ophiolites appear to have originated at convergent margins, and specifically in backarc or island arc settings, which evolved
either along the edge of the Sunda (Eurasia) and Australian cratons, or within the Philippine Sea Plate. These ophiolites were
later accreted to continental margins during the Tertiary. Because of fast relative plate velocities, tectonic regimes at the active
margins of these three plates also changed rapidly. Strain partitioning associated with oblique convergence caused arc-trench
systems to move further away from the locus of their accretion. We distinguish brelatively autochthonous ophiolitesQ resulting
from the shortening of marginal basins such as the present-day South China Sea or the Coral Sea, and bhighly displaced
ophiolitesQ developed in oblique convergent margins, where they were dismantled, transported and locally severely sheared
during final docking. In peri-cratonic mobile belts (i.e. the Philippine Mobile Belt) we find a series of oceanic basins which
have been slightly deformed and uplifted. Varying lithologies and geochemical compositions of tectonic units in these basins, as
well as their age discrepancies, suggest important displacements along major wrench faults.
We have used plate tectonic reconstructions to restore the former backarc basins and island arcs characterized by known petrogeochemical data to their original location and their former tectonic settings. Some of the ophiolites occurring in front of the Sunda
plate represent supra-subduction zone basins formed along the Australian Craton margin during the Mesozoic. The Philippine Sea
Basin, the Huatung basin south of Taiwan, and composite ophiolitic basements of the Philippines and Halmahera may represent
remnants of such marginal basins. The portion of the Philippine Sea Plate carrying the TaiwanPhilippine arc and its composite
ophiolitic/continental crustal basement might have actually originated in a different setting, closer to that of the Papua New Guinea
Ophiolite, and then have been displaced rapidly as a result of shearing associated with fast oblique convergence.
D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Supra-subduction ophiolite; Marginal basins; Kinematics; Oblique convergence; Sunda plate; Australia; Philippines; Cainozoic
tectonics; Strain partitioning
* Corresponding author. Fax: +33 144322000.

E-mail address: manu_pub@mailhost.geologie.ens.fr (M. Pubellier).
0040-1951/$ - see front matter D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tecto.2004.04.028
10
M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936
1. Introduction
Ophiolitic bodies are ubiquitous in SE Asia (Fig.
1), and various interpretations have been proposed for
their origin. They are generally highly dismembered
and display supra-subduction zone chemical affinities
(Table 1). The faults responsible for ophiolite
emplacement have been commonly reactivated by
subsequent tectonic events. Early faults that developed during the formation stage of oceanic crust were
involved in the exhumation of lower crust and upper
mantle rocks on the sea floor and in local dismembering of the crustal sections of ophiolites. The spatial
and temporal relationships of ophiolites with other
tectonic units are commonly obscured by a melange
unit displaying internal deformation (Clennell, 1996;
Harris et al., 1998) and metamorphism (Blake and
Brothers, 1977), by injection of dykes (Bloomer et al.,
1995) and by widespread serpentinization.
Most of the basaltic sections of the SE Asian
ophiolites display specific geochemical characteristics
(Fig. 2). Nearly flat REE patterns suggest derivation of
their magmas from rather depleted mantle sources
similar to those of Mid-Ocean Ridge Basalts (MORB).
However, their trace element abundances, particularly
their relative enrichment in large ion lithophile
elements (LILE) and depletion in high field strength
elements (HFSE), including the development of weak
to moderate negative anomalies in Nb and Ta with
respect to elements of similar incompatibility (e.g. La
and Th), are typical of magmas generated within
subduction-related settings, particularly backarc basins
(Saunders and Tarney, 1984; Tamayo, 2001; Tamayo
et al., in press). Similarly, peridotites in the mantle
sections of SE Asian ophiolites display enrichments in
LILE and light rare earth elements (LREE) suggesting
that they underwent metasomatism as a result of
percolation of fluids originated from a downgoing
oceanic slab (Kogiso et al., 1997). Hence, a suprasubduction origin is generally either demonstrated or
suspected for the ophiolitic bodies of SE Asia. This
11
implies that the slivers of fossil supra-subduction crust

or mantle that we find in various tectonic belts had
originally evolved in convergent margin settings,
which may resemble those observed today.
The purpose of this paper is to review the modern
and Neogene tectonic settings of oceanic crust
formation, using our current understanding of the
tectonic evolution of SE Asia (e.g. Rangin et al.,
1990a,b, 1999; Hall, 1996; Pubellier et al., 2003b). To
address this topic, we have surveyed the tectonic
systems at boundaries of the Philippine (which we
associate with the Caroline Plate), Sunda and Australian plates (Fig. 1). These include the Philippine
Arc, which formed on the Philippine Sea Plate, and
the southern extension of this belt, which has been
either obducted on the northern margin of the
Australian continent, or jammed within various crustal
fragments of central Indonesia. One striking tectonic
feature of these regions is the association of paired
subduction zones and trench-parallel strike-slip faults,
behind which extensional environments exist. Therefore, portions of the volcanic arcs have been removed
or are in the process of separating from their original
position and are scattered across the mobile belts
developed between Taiwan and Papua New Guinea.
2. Cainozoic history of SE Asia: processes

responsible for generation and emplacement of
ophiolites
2.1. Marginal basins in SE Asia
The modern structure of the Eurasian margin is
marked by a succession of marginal basins separated
by continental fragments (Fig. 3) and is a result of
long-lasting extension along the southern margin of
mainland Asia (Taylor and Hayes, 1980; Holloway,
1982). From north to south and away from the
Eurasian margin, these basins and continental fragments include (1) South China Sea and the continental
Fig. 1. Ophiolite occurrences in SE Asian, with seven enlargements of specific areas. The Philippine Sea Plate has been omitted in order to
represent only the continental margins. PSP/SUN/AUS plate boundary. PSP: Philippine Sea Plate, SUN: Sunda Plate, AUS: Australian Plate,
Ang: Angat Massif, Bi: Bismarck Sea, Bo: Bobaris range, Car: Caroline Plate, Ch: Chico River ophiolite, CM: Central Mindanao ophiolite, Cg:
Cagayan arc, CM: China Margin, CY, Cyclops Massif, Cro: Central Range ophiolite, ES: East Sulawesi ophiolite, Hua: Huatung Basin, Hal:
Halmahera Island, Mdo: Mindoro ophiolite, Me: Meratus ophiolite, Min: Mindanao island, Md: Mindoro, NG: New Guinea island, Mk:
Makassar Basin, Luz: Luzon island, NAS: Northern Arm of Sulawesi, Pa: Palawan, Pan: Panay ophiolite, Pu: Pujada ophiolite, SCS: South
China Sea, Sm: Sierra Madre of Luzon, Su: Sulawesi, Sul: Sulu Sea, Za: Zambales, Zb: Zamboanga Peninsula.
12
Table 1
Simplified table summarizing the age and origin of the ophiolites of SE Asia
Localisation
Names of
ophiolites
Age of
formation
Phillipines
AuroraIsabela
LepantoPugo
Bicol
Samar
Zambales
Angat
Leyte
Kalimantan
Sulawesi
Irian Jaya
Papua New
Guinea
Halmahera island
Age of
obduction
Volcanic
units
Tectonic
setting
References
Early Cretaceous
Cretaceous
Early Cretaceous
Late Cretaceous
MiddleLate Eocene
Middle Eocene
Early to Middle Eocene
MOR-SSZ
MOR
SSZ
SSZ
SSZ
SSZ
SSZ
Yumul et al.
(1997), Tamayo
(2001) (Tamayo
et al., in press)
Dinagat
Cebu
Bohol
Ilocos Norte
Mindoro
Antique
NE Zamboanga
Palawan
SW Zamboanga
Sabah (Darvel Bay)
Cretaceous to Eocene
Early Cretaceous
EarlyLate Cretaceous
Jurassic to Cretaceous
Middle Oligocene
Late Jurassique to Middle Eocene
Late Oligocene to Early Miocene
Late Cretaceous to Eocene
Late Cretaceous
Lower Cretaceous Eocene
SSZ
SSZ
SSZ
SSZ
SSZ
SSZ
SSZ
SSZ
SSZ
BABB
Marginal basin
Arcmarginal basin
Arcmarginal basin
Marginal basin
Marginal basin
Marginal basin
Oceanic basin
marginal basin
Marginal basin
Marginal basin
Forearc
Marginal basin
Marginal basin
Forearc
Marginal basin (?)
Marginal basin
Marginal basin (?)
Marginal basin
Meratus (southeast
Kalimantan)
Laut island
(southeast
Kalimantan)
Balantak and
central Sulawesi
Albian/Aptian
Turonian
IAT-BABB
Arcmarginal
basin
Eocene
Middle
Oligocene
BABB
Marginal basin
Lamasi
(central Sulawesi)
Bantimala
(west arm)
Barru island
(south Sulawesi)
Kabaena island
(south Sulawesi)
Buton island
(south Sulawesi)
Weyland
Not available
Not available
BABB
Marginal basin
Jurassic ?
Oligocene
Oceanic basin ?
Jurassic ?
Oligocene
Oceanic basin ?
Unknown
Paleocene
Cyclops
Eocene/Oligocene
Middle to Late
Miocene
Eocene and
Miocene
Miocene
Central
ophiolitic belt
Gauthier
Papua Ultramafic
Belt (Cap Vogel)
April
Marum
Jurassic
Unknown
Cretaceous
Omang and
Barber (1996)
Monnier et al.
(1999)
Unknown
Monnier et al.
(1995),
Parkinson (1998)
Bergman et al.
(1996)
Wakita et al.
(1996)
Unknown
Unknown
Eocene ?
Late Mesozoic/
Eocene
Late Cretaceous
Eocene
IAT
Davidson (1991)
Permana (1998)
Cretaceous
BON-IATBABB
BABB-MOR
Arcmarginal
basin
Forearcarc
marginal basin
Marginal basin
Eocene
BON
Forearcarc
Oligocene
Oligocene/
Miocene
Late Paleogene
Not available
BON
Forearcarc
Davies and Jaques

(1984), Jaques
et al. (1983),
Jenner (1981)
BON-IAT
Forearcarc
Ballantyne (1992)
Monnier et al.
(1999)
Monnier et al.
(2000)
13
Table 1 (continued)
Localisation
Age of
formation
Age of
obduction
Volcanic
units
Tectonic
setting
References
Seram and
Ambon islands
Early to Middle
Miocene
Late Miocene
IAT-BABB
Arc-BABB
Timor island
Unknown
Late Miocene
BON-IAT-MOR
Forearc
Early Cretaceous
Late Cretaceous
Marginal basin
Monnier et al.
(2003); Linthout
et al. (1997)
Harris and Long
(2000)
Wakita (2000)
Unknown
Pre Tertiary ?
Unknown
Java island
Waigeo island
Obi island
Names of
ophiolites
Karangsambung
(Luk Ulo complex)
BABB: backarc basin basalts, BON: boninite, IAT: island arc tholeiite, MOR: Mid-Ocean Ridge, SSZ: supra-subduction zone.
Palawan Block (P.B), (2) extended continental crust of

the NW Sulu Sea, (3) Cagayan volcanic arc, (4) Sulu
Sea backarc basin, (5) western edge of Mindanao and
the Sulu arc, characterized by continental basement,
(6) Celebes basin floored with oceanic crust and (7)
northern arm of Sulawesi, partly underlain by
continental basement (Taylor and Hayes, 1980;
Rangin et al., 1989a,b, 1990a,b; Pubellier et al.,
1992). The effect of the oblique collision on this
system has been the development of a mosaic of
crustal blocks, which may in fact have been derived
(Faure et al., 1989; Rangin et al., 1990a,b) from two
major plates: the Eurasian and the Philippine Sea
Plates. The fault-bounded blocks correspond to some
of the exotic terranes recognized by Karig (1983) and
McCabe and Almasco (1985).
Marginal basins have opened along the Eurasian
margin since the Early Tertiary, most of them trending
NS or NNW/SSE. The mechanics of basin opening
has always been a matter of discussion. It has been
proposed, for example, that the South China Sea
(SCS) opened in response to the extrusion of Indochina (Tapponnier et al., 1986). This interpretation is
difficult to reconcile, however, with a NS spreading
of the South China Sea and with the timing of rifting
that started in the Late Cretaceous (Pigott and Ru,
1994). More likely, gravity controlled trench-pull may
be invoked to explain the rifting and spreading of the
South China Sea basin. The subduction along the
Sunda Trench (Fig. 3) may be responsible for the
opening of the Proto South China and the Celebes
Seas, and the subduction of the Proto South China Sea
south of Palawan may in turn explain the South China
Sea opening (Rangin, 1989; Rangin et al., 1990a,b).
Nearly all the marginal basins have opened

diachronously in the eastern half of the Sunda/
southern China blocks. The first one was the Proto
South China Sea, the rifting of which started at the
edge of the Yienshanian orogen in the Late Cretaceous with limited sea floor spreading (if any) during
the Early Eocene. Other smaller basins such as the
Beibu basin and the Palawan Trough which opened on
either side of the South China Sea during the
Paleogene did not reach the oceanic stage (Rangin
et al., 1990b; Fig. 3). The Celebes Sea opened during
the Middle Eocene (47 Ma, Weissel, 1980; Silver et
al., 1989), followed by the opening of the South China
Sea during the Oligocene (3315 Ma, Taylor and
Hayes, 1980; Briais et al., 1988) and of the Sulu Sea
during late Early Miocene (18 Ma, Rangin, 1989).
The opening of these basins is interpreted to have
occurred analogous to that of the western South China
Sea, where a propagator has been identified, mapped
and modelled (Huchon et al., 2000). We assume a
similar evolution for the Makassar Basin as a
propagator of the Celebes Sea (Rangin et al.,
1990a,b). We also infer an identical process for the
Proto South China Sea narrow section of the Sulu Sea,
now shortened in Sabah.
The process of opening of the Sunda basins was
not terminated completely with the collision of the
Australian continental fragments in the Miocene.
After the jump of the Sunda subduction zone to its
present position (Fig. 3), the extension of the upper
plate further in the south produced two basins: the
North Banda basin during the Late Miocene and the
south Banda basin during the Pliocene (Honthaas et
al., 1998; Hinshberger et al., 2001).
14
Fig. 2. Theoretical section of a supra-subduction environment with typical multi-element plots of chondrite-normalized rare-earth elements and extended element patterns of selected
COB backarc basin basalts and peridotites. Examples are extracted from Eastern Indonesia (Monnier et al., 1995, 1999, 2000, 2003).
15
Fig. 3. Simplified map showing various continental blocks (thin crosshatched pattern) and basins of the Sunda, Australia and Philippine Sea
(PSP) plates. Thick lines characterize selected and simplified segments of major faults. Thicker dashed lines with saw teeth marks indicate the
former locations of major trenches Sunda Trench south of Sunda, and Melanesian Trench north of Australia are assumed hereafter to be
responsible for the stretching of the upper plates and subsequent opening of marginal basins floored with oceanic crust. Arrows represent an
approximate direction of opening. Same legend as Fig. 1 for the geographic names; additional basins on this figure are: BB: Beibu basin, Cel:
Celebes Basin, Mam: Mamberramo Basin, Mk: Makassar Basin, NBb: North Banda Basin, NGB: New Guinea Basins (disappeared), PSCS:
Proto South China Sea (disappeared), PT: Palawan Trough, TaiM: Thailand/Malay basins, SBb: South Banda Basin, Tet: Tethysian-affinity
basin, Tim: Timor Trough, WS: Westralian Super-basins.
2.2. Oblique convergence and trench-parallel fault

systems
The concept of strain partitioning (Fich, 1972;
Jarrard, 1986; McCaffrey, 1992) predicts that slivers
of a plate can be translated along its boundaries
because of the distribution of shear into trench-normal
and trench parallel components. Hence, large strikeslip faults, which are inherent to oblique convergence,
can easily translate and juxtapose units from different
tectonic settings in a broad supra-subduction zone
environment, or alternatively in various small suprasubduction basins of different ages. The slip rate
along the fault can also change through space and

time as a result of the variations in the convergence
vector, as shown along the forearc of Sumatra
(McCaffrey, 1991), or because of the migration of
the onset of a fault, as proposed along the Philippine
Fault (Pubellier et al., 1996a,b). These tectonic
settings involve trench-parallel faulting, which results
in tectonic extension responsible for the genesis of
basins floored with oceanic crust. Examples of such
extensional basins have been documented around the
Sunda plate and from the Philippines to Sumatra and
the Andaman Sea (Figs. 1 and 4A and B). Most of
these basins are characterized by simple graben
16
systems with abundant clastics (Fig. 5: Lianga Bay,

Northern Central Valley of Luzon, Visayan Basins,
Sunda Strait), but some are the locus of extensive
volcanism such as the Macolod Corridor (Pubellier et
al., 2000). The Marinduque basin (Sarewitz and
Lewis, 1991), a large depression filled with basaltic
floods, can be almost interpreted as an oceanic basin
in its early stages of evolution.
2.2.1. Basins resulting from sliver plate extension:
Mindanao and the Sunda Strait
Such extension in its early stage is illustrated by
Mindanao Island (Fig. 5). The docking of the
Philippine Arc, carried by the Philippine Sea Plate,
started by the end of the Miocene in the northern
Philippines and propagated rapidly toward the south at
a velocity similar to that of the plate convergence
(Pubellier et al., 1996a,b). This is illustrated by the
younging toward the south of the last unconformity
recorded in the shallow marine sediments of the intraarc basins. The onset of the Philippine Fault, which
follows very closely the time of docking, is marked by
a series of oblique faults, which branch off the
Philippine fault connecting to the trench. These faults
were former wrench faults of the docking phase that
are presently reactivated as extensional faults (Quebral et al., 1996). They accommodate for variation of
the slip rate along the southern segment of the
Philippine Fault from 10 to 24 mm/year (Aurelio et
al., submitted for publication). We therefore observe
extension along strike of the sliver plate and
subsequent basin openings.
Examples of deep basins also exist. The Sumatran
forearc (Fig. 4A) is a sliver plate which is decoupled
from the Eurasian and IndoAustralian plates and
which moves NW with respect to the Sunda Plate
(Jarrard, 1986; McCaffrey, 1991). The oblique convergence has been accommodated by the right-lateral
Fig. 4. Examples of basins opened by sliver migration along the Sunda Trench. (A) Schematic map of the Sunda Strait basin (SS). The two large
fault zones of Sumatra: the active Sumatra Fault (SF) and the barely active Mentawai Fault Zone (MFZ), bend toward the south and create a
large depression. Note the re-entrant of the Sunda Trench in front of the Strait, where the backstop of the subduction has been stretched. (B)
Schematic map of the Andaman Region where extremely oblique convergence between the Burma Platelet, dragged toward the north with India,
results in the opening of a basin in a pull-apart position. SAGF: Sagaing Fault, SS: Sumatra Fault, AF: Andaman Fault, BP: Burma Platelet,
SUN: Sunda Plate.
17
Fig. 5. The Philippine region with basins opened during the Late Neogene to the Present as a result of the oblique convergence between the
Philippine Sea and the Sunda Plates. Hatched pattern is used for the continental crust, very thin pattern for the Philippine Mobile Belt. Thick
arrows represent the relative motion of the sliver plate. Most basins are graben structures (Lianga Bay Basin, VB: Visayan Basins, Legazpi
Trough), but some of them, although not floored with oceanic crust, are the locus of important volcanic eruptions (MC: Macolod Corridor, Mar.
Basin: Marinduque Basin). Some basins are characterized by pull apart basins (Cota Basin: Cotabato Basin, NCV: North Central Valley). Dark
shapes represent ophiolitic bodies.
Great Sumatra Fault, connecting to the Andaman Sea

in the northwest (Fig. 4B; Curray et al., 1979). To the
southeast, the fault zone extends to the Sunda Strait
(Fig. 4A), where NWSE extension occurs (Huchon
and Le Pichon, 1984; Lassal et al., 1989; Diament et

al., 1990; Harjono et al., 1991). This extension, which
started in the Early Pliocene as shown by seismic lines
(Dahrin, 1993), probably affects the shape of the
18
forearc, and so far it has not reached the stage of sea

floor spreading. The Krakatau volcano has developed
in the strait, as a result supra-subduction zone
volcanism in an extensional setting.
2.2.2. Bismarck Sea (Manus Basin)

The Bismarck Sea (Fig. 6) is a 4 m.y. old basin,
characterized by long transform faults and very short
spreading segments (Taylor et al., 1995) and opened in
Fig. 6. Basins developed in the northeastern corner of Australia. The Cretaceous Coral Sea, the currently closed Proto-Solomon Sea, and the
actively closing Solomon Sea opened in the Eocene (Solomon Sea). The opening direction of the Solomon Sea is not known because the
original margins have disappeared. The ophiolites present in the Central Range of Papua New Guinea are Jurassic to Cretaceous in age. Some
basins, such as the Bismarck Sea (Manus Basin) and the Woodlark Basin, are currently in the process of opening due to the oblique convergence
between the Pacific and Australia plates.
the Eocene to Miocene Melanesian arc (Hamilton,

1979). Seismicity along the transform faults is abundant and indicates nodal planes with left-lateral strikeslip motion (Connelly, 1976). The westernmost transform enters Papua New Guinea in the Sepik basin, and
the wrench motion is transferred to the Sorong and the
Tarera faults. This is a clear example of a basin opened
as a tear fault on a large left-lateral wrench fault system,
although it occurs in a backarc position.
2.2.3. Andaman Basin
The present-day Andaman Sea (Fig. 4B) is a pullapart basin located between two dextral strike-slip
faults: the NS trending Sagaing Fault in the north and
the NW trending Great Sumatra Fault, which connects
with the Andaman fault in the south. The faults formed
in response to the relative oblique convergence
between the Indian Plate and Sundaland. They accommodate for most of the trench-parallel component of
the motion between the two plates. The deformation is
not restricted to a single fault but rather affects the
entire Burma microplate with distributed dextral faults
parallel to the Sagaing Fault System and distributed NS
trending folds accommodating for the EW compressional component. As in the case of the Manus basin to
the NE of the Australian continent, the western margin
of Sundaland is characterized by a transcurrent fault
system rather than subduction-tectonics. Before rifting,
which took place 10 Ma (Curray et al., 1979), the
Andaman area was made of en-echelon basins, like the
Myanmar Basin and the basins of the Irrawady Shelf
(Rangin et al., 1999; Fig. 4B). Accretion of oceanic
crust, started about 4 Ma, is still active (Chamot-Rooke
et al., 2001). However, there is no data for the
geochemical composition of this crust.
2.2.4. Wrench basins with volcanic activity and sea
floor spreading
Shear partitioning along wrench faults can produce
pull-apart basins floored with oceanic crust. Most of
these basins develop along releasing bends or relay
zones between major faults. This type of environment
is best represented in the central Philippines along the
Sibuyan-Verde Passage and the Philippine Faults, in a
setting where strain is transferred from the Philippine
Trench to the Manila Trench (Fig. 5). The relay zone is
marked by a large basin (Marinduque basin) which has
not evolved into a proper ocean floor, but which is
19
nevertheless the site of important submarine volcanism

(Sarewitz and Lewis, 1991). The Marinduque basin
was opened in a NS direction and then was aborted, as
the extensional zone propagated to the northwest in the
Macolod Corridor (Fig. 5). This Corridor is a large
graben filled with active volcanoes that opened within
the Pliocene and Pleistocene Taal volcanic field
(Forster et al., 1990). The early NS extension in the
Marinduque Basin between 5 and 2 Ma might have
migrated northward and rotated to the present Macolod
Corridor (Pubellier et al., 2000).
2.3. Present-day plate kinematics
Modern tectonic processes provide a clue to understand what may have happened to the slivers of oceanic
crust located at the edges of subduction zones. Since
the Middle Paleogene, the tectonic development of
Southeast Asia has been controlled largely by the rapid
convergence among the Eurasia-Sunda, Philippine Sea
and IndoAustralia Plates. The onset of volcanic arc
and backarc basin development has been fast as a result
of rapid plate motions. The relative motions between
the major plates as well as between smaller crustal
fragments and the internal deformation within blocks
or belts can be documented by spatial geodesy. In SE
Asia, geodetic measurements by various groups
(Genrich et al., 1996; Tregoning et al., 1998; Michel
et al., 2001) allowed us to evaluate the relative plate
motions along the main tectonic boundaries with a
precision better than 5 mm/year. Rangin et al. (1999)
analysed the geodynamic implications of geodetic
measurements performed simultaneously all over SE
Asia, both within the major plates and within the large
mobile belts. In order to evaluate and correct for the
possible effects of transient coseismic and interseismic
phenomena, they estimated the motion absorbed within
the main trenches and faults (Fig. 5). They could thus
model a pattern of transfer of the Philippine Sea Plate
(PH) motion from the Manila Trench to the Philippine
Trench. This study showed that deformation is accommodated by transfer faults and basins located inside the
mobile belts.
The ocean floor of various marginal basins trapped
in this convergent triple plate junction is presently
consumed at active subduction zones. These basins
include the West Philippine basin, the oldest marginal
basin of the Philippine Sea Plate, and the Molucca,
20
South China, Celebes and the Sulu seas. These

convergent plate boundaries and their associated
strike-slip fault zones delineate a broad active seismotectonic zone corresponding to the Philippine Mobile
Belt (PMB) in the north and the triple junction area in
the south. In addition, local indenters like the northern
salient of the Australian plate or the Banggai-Sula
microcontinent have induced tectonic escape of crustal
blocks facilitated by strike-slip faults, such as the
Paniai Fault Zone in Irian Jaya (9 cm/year) or the Palu
Fault (4.5 cm/year) (Walpersdorf and Vigny, 1998;
Pubellier et al., 2000; Stevens et al., 2001).
Leyte) indicate that stress tensors have shifted correspondingly from a collision-related direction to a
strike-slip-related one from the latest Miocene to the
Pliocene (Aurelio et al., 1991). In the southern
Philippine island of Mindanao, compression began in
the latest Mioceneearliest Pliocene times, and the
deformation zone is bounded toward the south by a NW
trending wrench zone that initiated concomitantly (Fig.
1, insert 2; Pubellier et al., 1996a,b). The NS-oriented
Philippine Fault, which crosscuts the entire length of
the archipelago, was initiated at the start of the
Pleistocene (Quebral et al., 1996).
2.4. Docking of oceanic/island arc terranes to the

Sunda block
3. Geological setting of SE Asian ophiolites
Most of the wrench fault motion in the SE Asian

region is taken up along the margins of the Australian
and Sunda plates. The effect of wrenching is either
additive (docking) and/or substractive (sliver plate
escape). The intraoceanic volcanic arc of the Philippine Sea Plate, previously situated away from the
Eurasian margin, is nowadays juxtaposed to it (southeast Eurasian margin) by means of subduction zones
in front of the marginal basins and collision zones
adjacent to the continental fragments. The basement
of this volcanic arc is composed almost entirely of
ultramafic rocks (Tamayo, 2001).
The age of docking varies from north to south
(Pubellier et al., 1996a,b), from the uppermost Miocene
in the northern Philippines to the Present in the
Molucca Sea. In Taiwan, the deformation may even
be slightly older at around 1510 Ma. In the northern
Philippines, contraction and strike-slip faulting
occurred within the late Middle Miocene rocks both
in the volcanic arc belt and on the Eurasian margin
(Pinet and Stephan, 1990) prior to the onset of the
present Manila Trench subduction (Defant et al., 1989),
which started in late Middle Miocene. Its magmatic
activity is clearly recorded in sedimentary basins
(Ilocos and Cagayan basins) on both sides of the
Cordillera (Pinet and Stephan, 1990). In the central
Philippines, there is a widespread unconformity marking the Middle Miocene boundary (Rangin et al.,
1989b) in Palawan (Fricaud, 1984), Panay-Mindoro
(Rangin et al., 1985; Marchadier and Rangin, 1990)
and in Cebu (Rangin et al., 1989b). Fault-set analyses
in the Central Philippines (Bondoc, Masbate and
The structure and tectonics of the ophiolites in SE

Asia have been discussed in various syntheses (Hamilton, 1979; Hutchison, 1987, 1989; Hutchinson, 1996;
Yumul et al., 1997; Tamayo, 2001, in press). We
discuss here the general context of their formation and
the kinematic aspects of ophiolite evolution and
emplacement with reference to the well-documented
plate motions in the western Pacific. We propose that
the ophiolitic belts in SE Asia can be divided into two
major groups (Fig. 7). The first group is composed of
chains of ophiolitic massifs now accreted to cratonic
areas, and is referred hereafter as brelatively autochthonous ophiolitesQ. They represent the remnants of
marginal arc- or backarc-oceanic crust, which was
developed adjacent to continental margins. Modern
analogues of these ophiolites may be found in the
South China Sea and its propagator into the Sunda
shelf, the Celebes Sea and its SW propagator in the
Makassar Basin, or the Coral Sea NE of Australia and
its propagator already accreted to the eastern part of
the New Guinea Fold-and-Thrust Belt. The group set
(Fig. 7) includes more dismembered massifs commonly with variable lithologies and geochemical
signatures tectonically juxtaposed. They consist of
all the massifs present in the mobile belts and are
referred to herein as bhighly displaced ophiolitesQ.
4. Relatively autochthonous ophiolites

Some of the ophiolite belts have been integrated
into the cratonic area (Figs. 1 and 7). The present
21
Fig. 7. Approximate contours of the ophiolites trapped inside continental masses (relatively autochtonous) and ophiolites dragged along the
plate boundaries (displaced). Location of sites discussed in text is represented by dots. Bgs: Banggai-Sula Block, Bu: Buru Block, Ser: Seram
Block, Saw: Sarawak belt, Sch: Schwanner batholith.
configuration of the Sunda Plate basins (part of the

former Eurasian Plate) illustrates the origin of these
fragments. On the Sunda plate, these ophiolites are
principally remnants of the Tethyan domain and the
Proto South China Sea if we discard the poorly known
ophiolites resulting from the pre-Cenozoic closure of
basins following the accretion of Gondwanian blocks
(see for example Metcalfe, 1996). The other ophiolites
present within the Sunda plate are fragments of
marginal basins that developed within this plate since
the Early Tertiary.
4.1. Borneo
Ophiolitic remnants exist in various places in
Borneo (Hutchinson, 1996; Rangin et al., 1989b;
Omang and Barber, 1996; Fig. 1). The occurrence

beneath northern Borneo of a remnant subducted
lithosphere is suggested by recent tomographic data
(Rangin et al., 1999). This subducted lithosphere
forms a 300-km long sliver found at depths down to
250 km beneath the northern Borneo margin and
could represent a detached fragment of the ProtoSouth China Sea floor (PSCS, Rangin et al., 1990a;
Tongkul, 1994; Fig. 3). The Proto South China Sea
is one of the basins that opened within the Eurasian
continental margin in the PaleoceneEocene (Rangin
et al., 1990a,b). The basin opened within an area
that had previously undergone basin closure and
ophiolite obduction, and the ophiolites present there
are thus not likely to have originated from the
PSCS. The basin was closed by the Middle Miocene
22
and received a large amount of terrigenous sediments (Rangin et al., 1990b; Bellon and Rangin,
1991). Its detachment is interpreted to have resulted
from the Miocene collision of the Cagayan Ridge
volcanic arc with the rifted continental margin of the
South China Sea that ended the subduction-related
magmatic activity in northern Borneo (Prouteau et
al., 2001). Although the geometry of the margin is
not exactly known, remnants of the Tethyan basin
floor are scattered in the southern and eastern Sunda
Plate, but there is no ophiolite shown to have
originated from the PSCS. Instead, most of the
ophiolites present in the region are Early Cretaceous
or Jurassic (Yuwono et al., 1988) in age and
represent basins that were shortened during the
closure of the Tethys.
4.2. The Meratus Mountains
One of the largest occurrences of Mesozoic
ophiolites that still stands at or close to the original
location of the Tethyan basin (Audley-Charles, 1977)
is the Meratus ophiolite in southeast Borneo (Fig. 1
and insert 7). It occurs in a NS to N030 trending
mountain range composed of ultramafic and metamorphic rocks. The Meratus range extends southward
into the Java Sea along the Laut Ridge and is
inferred to connect to Java along the Bawean Trough
(Katili, 1984; Hamilton, 1979). Peridotites are
present along the narrow western Bobaris Range
and the eastern Meratus Range sensu stricto. The
northern extension of the ophiolites is not well
understood, but it probably connects to the Sarawak
ophiolite belt (Hutchinson, 1996; Van Bemmelen,
1970; Haile et al., 1977) along the northern side of
the Schwanner batholith (Williams et al., 1988).
There, ultramafic rocks exist in the Lubok Antu
Melange (Tan, 1979). The ophiolite of the Meratus
Mountains and its high-temperature metamorphic
sole were emplaced from south to north during the
late Early Cretaceous and were undergone by lowtemperature deformation by the end of the Cretaceous (Pubellier et al., 1999a,b).
The geochemical features of the Meratus ophiolite (Monnier et al., 1999) suggest that its peridotites
represent a fragment of a sub-continental mantle that
locally experienced low degrees of fractional melting during the last stages of continental rifting. The
mantle was probably highly heterogeneous in

composition and enriched in hydrous phases, supporting the hypothesis of variable degrees of
melting. This could explain the occurrence of both
slightly and strongly depleted peridotites in the
Meratus Mountains. The volcanic rocks with compositions varying from Enriched MORB (E-MORB)
to Normal MORB (N-MORB) were likely erupted
during a magmatic event at the end of the rifting
phase. The E-MORB chemistry could have resulted
from the melting of an enriched lithospheric mantle
that was thermally eroded during rifting by rising
asthenosphere, which would have produced the NMORB. The Meratus peridotites and associated
basalts (E-MORB and N-MORB) were then
emplaced together on the Eurasian passive continental margin.
A change in the regional geodynamic setting
likely occurred later, probably due to the Australia
Antarctica break-up during AlbianAptian times. The
eruption of pre-Eocene calc-alkaline magmas (Alino
Formation, Yuwono et al., 1988) and the subsequent
development of a backarc basin along the SE
Eurasian margin may be a consequence of these
new plate motions. The closure of this new basin
during the Cenomanian and Early Turonian resulted
in overthrusting of the rift-related lithological
assemblages over the calc-alkaline series (Pubellier
et al., 1999a,b).
4.3. Relicts of Sunda basins (South China Sea,
Celebes basin, Sulu Sea)
Some of the basins floored with ocean crust may
have been partly emplaced during regional shortening that affected the Sunda plate since the Early
Miocene. The South China Sea ocean floor has
possibly had an eastern appendix emplaced onto the
Mindoro Island in the western Philippines (Rangin
et al., 1985). Other fragments of backarc- to arctype oceanic crust are found on the northern and
eastern segments of Sulawesi Island (northern
Indonesia, Monnier et al., 1995; Rangin et al.,
1997). The age of the pillow basalts is Eocene,
consistent with the age of the Celebes basin floor
situated northwards.
The northernmost part of the Sulu basin floor has
been obducted on Panay island in the Central
Philippines (Fig. 1, insert 2). The nature of the oceanic

basement in the Celebes and Sulu Sea basins is known
through the results of ODP Leg 124. Magmas of the
Sulu Sea ocean floor appear to have originated from a
MORB-like mantle source metasomatised by subduction-related fluids (Spadea et al., 1991), whereas the
Celebes Sea basalts are MORB type with a slight
backarc signature (low Sr and Nb, Serri et al., 1991;
Monnier et al., 1995). Similar characteristics are
found in rocks of the same age on the Northern
Arm of Sulawesi, with N-MORB compositions for the
pillow-basalts and island-arc tholeiites to calc-alkaline
for massive flows and dykes (Rangin et al., 1997).
4.4. The Java-Sumatra region
Other occurrences of ultramafic rocks exist further
west along the Sumatra forearc (Fig. 1), mainly in the
peridotites and bmelangeQ basement of Nias and
Simeleu islands. They were interpreted first as fragments of the Indian Ocean floor accreted into the
Sunda wedge (Moore and Karig, 1980). Subsequently,
they have been interpreted as part of the Sunda margin
onto which the rest of the Tethyan ocean floor was
obducted in the Early Tertiary (Pubellier et al., 1992).
Ophiolitic rocks are unconformably overlain by thick
clastic and limestone series ranging from Late
PaleoceneEarly Eocene to Early Miocene (Pubellier
et al., 1992) or from Oligocene to Early Miocene
(Samuel et al., 1997). These cover rocks form part of a
stratigraphically continuous sedimentary succession
that may have been deposited in a set of NW trending
half-grabens (Samuel et al., 1997).
In northern Sumatra, ophiolites are present as one
of the two main units of the Woyla Group (Cameron
et al., 1980), which has been interpreted as an old
accretionary wedge (Wajzer et al., 1991). We do not
have petrographic or geochemical data from these
rocks. Separated from the Indian Ocean floor by a
coastal Permian arc assemblage, these ophiolitic
bodies might represent fragments of a more internal
Tethyan basin.
The extension of the NW Sumatra suture to the
south is difficult to trace (Hamilton, 1979; Hutchison, 1987; Hutchinson, 1996; Metcalfe, 1996). The
nearest exposure of sutures, melange, and basement
rocks is located in the Karangsambung area in
central Java (Suparka, 1988; Suparka and Soeria
23
Atmadja, 1991). The suture zone here is overlain

unconformably by an Eocene limestone (Ketner et
al., 1976) and connects with the dismantled suture
zone of Sulawesi.
4.5. The basins of the northern Australian margin
During Early to Late Mesozoic and then in the Late
CretaceousPaleogene, several basins developed
along the northern margin of Australia (e.g. Yan and
Kroenke, 1993). The NW margin of Australia has been
rifted since the Permian, leading to the formation of
large grabens collectively referred to as the
bWestralian SuperbasinQ (Fig. 3) (Yeates et al., 1986)
and to the accretion of oceanic crust further north.
Some of the basins developed in the northeastern
corner of Australia still exist or are currently in the
process of further opening (Fig. 4). The Solomon Sea
(Davis and Honza, 1987) and a presently closed ProtoSolomon Sea (Davies, 1971; Davies and Smith, 1971;
Pigram and Symonds, 1991) developed in a similar
way. A modern analogue of basin opening along the
continental margin of Australia is the Woodlark Basin
(Taylor, 1992; Fig. 4).
There is some information available from Papua
New Guinea (PNG) regarding the former existence
of basins floored with oceanic crust (Davies, 1971;
Davies and Smith, 1971). Recent studies show the
presence of at least two different marginal basins,
both of which formed in backarc settings in the
Central Range and the coastal belt of Irian Jaya
(Girardeau et al., 1994; Monnier et al., 1999, 2000;
Pubellier et al., 2003a). The older basin opened
during the Middle JurassicEarly Cretaceous forming the Central Range Ophiolite (CRO, Figs. 1 and
3). This ophiolite was displaced from its original
setting at ca. 40 Ma and was finally emplaced on
the Australian continental margin by 30 Ma. The
younger basin evolved during the Oligocene to
Middle Miocene and was closed in the Early
Pliocene. There are some age discrepancies between
the ophiolites of Irian Jaya (Jurassic) and those of
PNG (Late CretaceousPaleocene), which may have
been connected to the Coral Sea Basin floor at that
time (Pigram and Symonds, 1991). We do not know
in detail the geometries and connections between
these basins in the Early Tertiary, but some fragments of their ocean floor were incorporated into the
24
New Guinea Central Range. The geodynamic setting

of these basins is complex because they are located
at the boundary between the active volcanic margin
developed on the eastern side of Australia and the
rifted-passive margin basins of northwestern and
western Australia (Fig. 5). It has been proposed that
they represent backarc basins developed during the
JurassicEarly Cretaceous (Monnier et al., 2000;
Pubellier et al., 2003b). Most of the ophiolites were
deformed in an oceanic environment and were thrust
over an amphibolitic sole around 40 Ma ago in
Papua New Guinea (Davies, 1971) and in Irian Jaya
(Permana, 1998).
The ophiolite in the Central Range of Irian Jaya
(Fig. 1, insert 5, Fig. 2) is composed mostly of
lherzolite and harzburgite, displaying MORB characteristics with LILE enrichments and negative Nb
anomalies characteristic of supra-subduction zone
environments (Monnier et al., 2000). La/Nb ratios of
basalts range from 1.90 to 4.33, which may be
interpreted as the variable contribution of a subduction component, as documented in most backarc
basins (Saunders and Tarney, 1984). K/Ar radiometric ages on gabbroic amphiboles range from
157F16 to 66F1.6 Ma (Permana, 1998), and the
oldest marine sedimentary sequence of this basin is
Jurassic in age. Therefore, the northern margin of
Papua New Guinea was perhaps fringed by a large
backarc basin during this time interval (Fig. 8A), in a
configuration similar to that of the modern eastern
Australian margin (Weissel and Watts, 1979; Yan
and Kroenke, 1993; Pubellier et al., 2003b). A
similar conclusion was drawn by Harris and Long
(2000) for the ophiolitic blocks engulfed in the
melanges of Timor island.
Tectonic interactions between the Sunda and Indo
Australia plates have been discussed in the literature
(Rangin et al., 1990a,b; Daly et al., 1987, 1991; Hall,
1996; Hall, 1998; Hall and Wilson, 2000; Fig. 8A and
B). Microcontinental blocks separated from Australia
are thought to have begun colliding with Eastern
Indonesia (part of Sundaland) during the Early
Miocene. In Sulawesi, collisions started in the Middle
Miocene (Kundig, 1956; Silver et al., 1983). It is
possible that Gondwana (Australia)-derived crustal
fragments were docked to Sunda in the Paleocene
(Rangin et al., 1990a,b; Parkinson, 1998; Villeneuve et
al., 1998).
The nature of the boundary between the Philippine

Sea plate and Papua New Guinea (part of the Indo
Australia Plate) is difficult to decipher (Fig. 8A and
B). Most authors consider that the leading edge of
Australia was in connection with the Philippine Sea
Plate in the EarlyMid Neogene, and that subsequently this boundary became the left-lateral Sorong
Fault (Dow and Sukamto, 1984; Ali and Hall, 1995).
For the Paleogene, regional kinematic models place
the Australian Craton well to the south of the
Philippine Sea Plate (Fig. 8). However, from the Late
Eocene to the Middle Oligocene, the large ophiolitic
body of the Papua New Guinea fold belt was
emplaced. The regional geology indicates the creation
of a supra-subduction ophiolite in a geodynamic
setting characterized by rapid backarc basin opening
and strike-slip faulting. Ultimately, fragments of these
basins were displaced from their initial setting and
were carried to the present location of the Philippines,
forming highly displaced ophiolites (Pubellier et al.,
2003a).
4.6. Seram (North Banda Sea)
It is currently proposed that Seram, with Buru
and Timor islands, represents the PaleozoicCenozoic continental margin of Australia (Audley-Charles
et al., 1979), and that is was probably accreted to
the Banda arc (Hamilton, 1979; Katili, 1975) along
a transform fault in the western boundary of the
Banda paleo-sea (Daly et al., 1987, 1991; De Smet,
1989). Large-scale rotations might have probably
occurred during this complex tectonic evolution
(Haile, 1981).
Ultramafic rocks are present on Seram, Kelang and
Ambon islands (Fig. 1, insert 4). They are mainly
located in the western part of Seram (Kaibobo)
(Tjokrosapoetro and Budhitrisna, 1982). The origin
and emplacement processes of these ultramafic rocks
remain uncertain due to the absence of contact between
volcanic and ultramafic rocks; however, many
researchers (Hamilton, 1979; Hutchison, 1977; Katili,
1975; Milsom, 1977) proposed that the ultramafic
rocks could have originated in the Banda Sea because
of abundant peridotite outcrops on Ambon island,
located southward. Based on a PT path model inferred
from the study of plagioclase-bearing peridotites,
Linthout and Helmers (1994) concluded that this

Fig. 8. Paleogeographic reconstruction of the basins north of Australia: (A) the Mesozoic basin during the Eocene, prior to the obduction of its floor on the Australian shelf (CRO,
Central Range Ophiolite; modified from Pubellier et al., 2003a). (B) The Late EoceneOligocene basins Mamberramo/Solomon before the Mid Miocene.
25
26
ophiolite formed by rifting of the Ber-Seram microcontinent from Australian during Early to Middle
Miocene (40K/40Ar on high-Mg tholeiites: 209 Ma
and BABB: 1915 Ma; Monnier et al., 2003), Its
emplacement onto Seram would have occurred
between 9.5 and 7 Ma (Linthout and Helmers, 1994;
Linthout et al., 1997).
Ultramafic rocks from Seram island (central
Indonesia) include weakly depleted peridotites (plagioclase-bearing lherzolites) that represent a piece of
subcontinental mantle, which was partly melted and
metasomatised prior to its re-equilibration in the
plagioclase field and during its ascent associated
with a continental rifting episode (Monnier et al.,
2003). The associated high-Mg calc-alkaline tholeiites were likely generated within a mantle wedge
with a high geothermal gradient during early stages
of subduction. These high-Mg tholeiites have strong
backarc basin basalt (BABB) chemical affinities
(regarding the high rare-earth ratios (e.g. La/Nb
and Th/Nb).
Ophiolite formation had probably initiated along a
transform margin. Subsequent oblique convergence
along this transform fault zone resulted in the
subduction of some oceanic lithosphere under Seram
during the Early Miocene and in the formation of a
volcanic arc. The injection of the gabbros and
websterites into the peridotites and their uplift and
exhumation may be related to the splitting of this arc
ca. 13 Ma. We therefore consider that the ophiolites of
the Seram region actually represent the northern
margin of Australia. They may have been connected
with the OligoceneEarly Miocene Mamberramo
Basin of Irian Jaya (Monnier et al., 2003; Fig. 8B)
and the OligoceneEarly Miocene Sepik basin (Davies
and Jacques, 1984).
5. Highly displaced ophiolites

Ophiolites are ubiquitous in the Mobile Belt of the
Philippines. They are generally exposed in complex
tectonic settings involving large Neogene or Recent
faults. Almost all the ophiolites of the Philippine Arc
have supra-subduction affinities (Hawkins and Evans,
1983; Yumul et al., 1997; Tamayo, 2001). Similarly, at
the opposite end of the Mobile Belt, in New Guinea,
ophiolite bodies display petrological and geochemical
characteristics of arc, forearc and backarc settings

(Monnier et al., 1999, 2000).
Since the Early Neogene, convergence among
the Philippine Sea, IndoAustralia and Eurasia
Plates has led to arc collision and the subsequent
incorporation of buoyant arc fragments onto Papua
New Guinea (starting possibly in the Early Miocene) and the northern Philippines (Late Miocene).
Arc transfer is taking place today in the southern
Philippines, east of Mindanao, where the Philippine
trench is propagating southwards, decoupling the
arc from the Philippine Sea Plate (Pubellier et al.,
1999a,b). This process may occur in Taiwan within
the next 510 million years, when convergence
between the overthrusting western tip of the
Philippine Sea Plate and southeast China switches
to a subduction zone, linking the Philippine and
Ryukyu Trenches. However, prior to its amalgamation with Sundaland, the Philippine Arc ended its
activity before Middle Oligocene and underwent
severe deformation (Rangin et al., 1990a,b; Billedo,
1994).
5.1. The Tertiary Cyclops Ophiolite of New Guinea
The Cyclops Ophiolite occurs along the northern
coast of Papua New Guinea in Irian Jaya (Monnier et
al., 2000) where it is thrust over high pressurehigh
temperature mafic rocks.
It contains all of the components of a typical
ophiolitic sequence: residual mantle peridotites
(harzburgites and dunites), cumulate gabbros, dolerites, basalts with N-MORB composition and minor
amounts of boninitic lavas. The geochemical signatures (Figs. 2 and 8) of the basalt samples (arc,
backarc) suggest that the Cyclops ophiolite in Irian
Jaya formed in a supra-subduction environment.
Some of the samples (ultramafic rocks and boninites)
likely formed in a fore-arc environment during the
Middle Eocene (Monnier et al., 1999). All these
series were overthrust during the Early Oligocene by
a backarc basin crust representing the main ophiolitic
series including gabbros, dolerites and lavas. The
geochemical data show that gabbros and basalts are
co-genetic. These associated basalts and related
cumulate rocks display major- and trace-element
contents with flat patterns and Nb-negative anomalies together with moderate enrichment in LILE (Ba,
Rb, Th) indicative of convergent margin settings

(Fig. 2). Mineral chemistry and the bulk rock REE
abundances of the peridotites are characteristic of
highly residual mantle rocks. The high Cr number of
spinel and very low HREE concentrations of
peridotites are in agreement with residues of 20
35% melting as expected of peridotites from suprasubduction zone environments (Monnier et al.,
1999).
5.2. Northern Philippines and the Huatung Basin:
pieces of relatively undeformed backarc basin crust
The Philippine region has a complex and
composite basement that contains numerous ophiolite complexes, most of which have a supra
subduction origin (Mitchell et al., 1986; Geary et
al., 1988; Yumul et al., 1997; Tamayo, 2001;
Tamayo et al., in press). The ophiolitic gabbros
likely crystallized from basaltic liquids originated
from mantle sources that underwent high degrees of
partial melting and/or several episodes of melting.
Low to high degrees of partial melting are also
deduced from the mantle peridotites (Tamayo et al.,
in press).
There are discrepancies in age and nature of the
ophiolite present in the northern Philippines. The
Eocene Zambales ophiolite (Fig. 1, insert 1) has
been probably carried over a large distance because
it cannot be correlated with any of the neighbouring
basins, and it has been thrust over relicts of
continental basement present along the coast. The
ophiolite occurrences in NE Luzon, although not all
dated, are assumed to be slightly older (Cretaceous,
Billedo, 1994). From the eastern coast of Luzon, the
peridotites and metamorphics of the Sierra Madre
dip gently toward the west beneath the sediments of
the Cagayan Basin. Subsurface data show that there
is little deformation in the basin except one reverse
fault, which corresponds to a transverse ridge. The
Central Cordillera is separated from the Cagayan
basin by a series of enechelon reverse and strike-slip
faults, and it only shows basement at the bottom of
deeply incised valleys. When basement can be
reached, it is composed of well-preserved and
weakly deformed dykes, pillows and cherts. The
best exposures of such rock types are in Chico
River in the Central cordillera (Figs. 1 and 9).
27
Similar observations can be made in the ophiolites

of the Angat Massif (Tamayo, 2001). The geochemical signature of the ophiolites of the Sierra
Madre, at least in its southern part (Isabella Massif),
indicates a MORB affinity (Tamayo, 2001). These
ophiolites differ from those of the Zambales Massif,
which is typical of an arc and backarc basin
basement (Hawkins and Evans, 1983).
North of Luzon, the basement of the Philippine
arc, is probably simpler (Fig. 9). Bathymetry and
free air gravity suggest that the Miocene volcanic
arc lies directly on a relatively homogenous basement. It is possible that the missing basement of the
arc is actually the southern part of the Middle
Cretaceous Huatung Basin, whose northern part is
known from magnetic anomalies (though poorly
identified), and from dredging west of the Gagua
ridge (Deschamps et al., 2000). There is no
Fig. 9. Possible extension of the Huatung Basin on Luzon Island

(hatched pattern). Faults on Luzon Island are from Loevenbruck et
al. (2002). Ophiolitic bodies are as follows: Zamb: Zambales, Ang:
Angat, Isa: Isabella, Chico: Chico River, Pal: Palaui Island, Laoag:
Laoag ophiolite, CC: Central Cordillera.
28
complete ophiolite reported in Taiwan, other than

large ophiolitic blocks engulfed in the Lichi
Melange (Liou and Ernst, 1979).
As a preliminary conclusion, we propose that the
northern part of the Philippine Mobile belt is
composed of a series of basin floors, which have
been slightly deformed and uplifted. Mass wasting
from this mobile belt filled the intra arc basins such
as the Central Valley of Luzon (Late Oligocene to
Early Miocene Klondyke Formation). Their varying
lithologies, geochemical compositions and age
discrepancies suggest large-scale displacements
along major wrench faults, which have been
reactivated as reverse or thrust faults during
subsequent shortening.
5.3. The Halmahera-Molucca Region ophiolites
Halmahera, together with Waigeo and Obi, as well
as other smaller islands are composed of ophiolitic
complexes covered by Upper Cretaceous and Eocene
forearc sediments (Ballantyne and Hall, 1990; Ballantyne, 1991, 1992; Hall et al., 1991; Baker and
Malaihollo, 1996). Ophiolitic rocks are intruded by
9472 Ma (40Ar/39Ar) diorites. These units, which are
now part of the Philippine Sea Plate, have suprasubduction zone chemical signatures (with dominantly arc, boninitic and rare seamount origin), and
their generation requires a high degree of partial
mantle melting (Ballantyne, 1991). In Waigeo, an
ultramafic basement exists (Charlton et al., 1991), but
it is not dated nor analysed. These ultramafic rocks,
assumed firstly to be Late Mesozoic in age, are
covered by Paleogene forearc sediments, and chert
floats bear Early Eocene radiolarian assemblages
(Ling et al., 1991). We cannot rule out the possibility
that this ophiolitic basement is similar to that of
Morotai island (Hall et al., 1991), and probably to the
submerged Snellius Plateau (Pubellier et al., 2000).
The polygenic characteristics of the basement on these
islands resemble that of the present-day Mariana
forearc.
Ophiolitic rocks are also exposed as small bodies,
as well as blocks in melanges, in Talaud islands
(Moore et al., 1981) They constitute the present
forearc basement of the Sangihe arc that was
obducted by the Early or Middle Miocene prior to
the deposition of the overlying forearc sediments
(Bader and Pubellier, 2000), probably as a fragment

of the former Molucca/Celebes crust. The ophiolitic
chain continues in Central Mindanao as disrupted
alignment of small massifs and melanges (Pubellier
et al., 1996a,b, 1999a; Tamayo, 2001) and may
connect with the ophiolites present in western Panay
island (Fig. 1, insert 2).
6. Conclusions
It can be inferred from observations of active
processes that rapid plate convergence is the most
efficient way of generating basins floored with
oceanic crust. The major cause for the dismantlement
of ophiolitic bodies is the oblique convergence, which
causes decoupling of the convergence vector above a
subduction zone (Fich, 1972; Jarrard, 1986; McCaffrey, 1992). Three basic ideas account for the
distribution of the Mesozoic and Cainozoic ophiolites
in SE Asia.
1.
2.
The closure of Tethyan-derived basins trapped

during the IndiaAustralia convergence (Fig. 1).
Related ophiolites are represented by the IndusTsang Po Suture zone ophiolites in the Himalayas, the Naga ophiolite in northern Myanmar,
ophiolites of the Andaman islands, ophiolites
associated with the Woyla Group in Sumatra and
the Meratus and the Central/SE Sulawesi ophiolites jammed between Borneo and the Gondwanian blocks in the Southern Sunda region (e.g.
Sumba Block; Rangin et al., 1990a,b). Traces of
suture zone ophiolites associated with the end of
the subduction beneath the Yenshanian Arc are
also scattered along the stretched margin of the
Sunda Block in NW and NE Borneo, Palawan
and part of southeastern China.
Basins developed at the edges of continental
plates (marginal basins sensu stricto) were
opened to the south of the Eurasian plate (Fig.
10). They are namely the Proto-South China
Sea (Paleocene), the Celebes-Makassar and
possibly the Molucca Sea basins (Eocene), the
South China Sea (Mid-Oligocene to Mid-Miocene), and the Sulu Sea (Mid-Miocene). In
addition to the opening of these basins, a
variety of aborted basins opened, such as the
29
Fig. 10. Schematic figure illustrating how the Sunda and Australian continental margins are stretched by the convergence, creating the
brelatively autochthonous basins and ophiolitesQ. The Philippine Sea Plate is not depicted.
Beibu basin in southern China, the Palawan

Trough, the South Makassar basin, numerous
basins in Southern Borneo and the Java Sea,
and the basins of Southern Thailand and
Malaysia (Hamilton, 1979; Hutchison, 1989;
Hutchinson, 1996). These basins probably
opened in response of the upper plate to the
trench pull along the Sunda Trench. Similarly,
basins developed to the N, NE and NW of
Australia since the Late Triassic break-up
(Pigram and Symonds, 1991; Struckmeyer et
al., 1993; Monnier et al., 1999, 2003). These
basins were situated landward of a large
volcanic belt along the Eastern and northern
side of the Australian craton during the Mesozoic. Whereas these basins are still present in
the Southwest Pacific, extensive portions of
oceanic crust extended north of the Australian
and that crust was subducted as Australia began
is steady northward drift in the Early Eocene
(Pubellier et al., 2003b). The ophiolites of New
3.
Guinea Island, some ophiolites of Timor, Seram

and possibly Eastern Sulawesi represent the
obducted part of these basins.
Oblique convergence induced strain partitioning
and development of large wrench faults (Fig.
11). The active ones such as the Sorong Fault,
the Tarera Fault or the Paniai Fault are well
documented, but older Neogene indicators of
activity also exist. In Papua New Guinea,
wrench faults parallel to the Sorong Fault have
been in existence since at least the Miocene
(Dow and Sukamto, 1984) and have extruded
crustal blocks toward Central Indonesia (Silver
et al., 1985). During the Jurassic and Early
Cretaceous, the Papua New Guinea Ophiolite
formed the southern portion of a backarc basin
opening behind a volcanic arc migrating toward
the north (Monnier et al., 1999; Pubellier et al.,
2003b). In addition, fragments of the margin
were found north of the present ophiolitic belt.
Some of them yield remnants of a volcanic arc
30
Fig. 11. Schematic figure illustrating how elements of the active margins are dragged by oblique convergence. Fragments composed mostly of
supra-subduction terranes are sliced off because of the partitioning of the oblique convergence vector, and then transported by large wrench
faults, creating the bhighly displaced ophiolitesQ. PSP: Philippine Sea Plate. Bathymetric contours of the PSP and the Caroline basin have been
shown for reference.
with Triassic (Dow et al., 1988) and Early

Jurassic (Prouteau, 1995) ages. The second
opening during the Late OligoceneMiddle
Miocene (Cyclops basin) developed further
away from the craton, following similar process
in addition to a left-lateral strike-slip component
Similarly, in the Philippines, large wrench faults
have been studied in the Northern Philippines,
which suggest that the tectonic setting was
dominated by oblique convergence and strain
partitioning (Karig, 1983; Geary and Kay,
1989). The transport directions of the ophiolite
in Irian Jaya is on average ENE, and the
direction of shortening measured in the metamorphics of the Philippines is also ENE when
restored for the 508 counter clockwise rotation

(Pubellier et al., 2003a).
Acknowledgements
This paper is a synthesis from the results of the
cooperation programs between the Philippino and the
Indonesian and the French governments, through the
Mines and Geosciences Bureau and the University of
the Philippines, the LIPI and Institute of Technology
Bandung in Indonesia, and INSU and MAE in
France. Many individuals in the fields of petrography, geochemistry, stratigraphy and tectonics participated in these programs and only some key
results have been used here. We benefited from

critical reviews from R. Harris and R. Stein and
copy-editing by Y. Dilek which collectively helped
ameliorating the manuscript. M.P. belongs to Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS-UMR
8538).
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Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 9 36

Plate kinematics, origin and tectonic emplacement

* Corresponding author. Fax: +33 144322000.

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

implies that the slivers of fossil supra-subduction crust

2. Cainozoic history of SE Asia: processes

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

Davies and Jaques

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

Palawan Block (P.B), (2) extended continental crust of

Nearly all the marginal basins have opened

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

2.2. Oblique convergence and trench-parallel fault

along the fault can also change through space and

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

systems with abundant clastics (Fig. 5: Lianga Bay,

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

Great Sumatra Fault, connecting to the Andaman Sea

and Le Pichon, 1984; Lassal et al., 1989; Diament et

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

forearc, and so far it has not reached the stage of sea

2.2.2. Bismarck Sea (Manus Basin)

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

the Eocene to Miocene Melanesian arc (Hamilton,

nevertheless the site of important submarine volcanism

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

South China, Celebes and the Sulu seas. These

2.4. Docking of oceanic/island arc terranes to the

3. Geological setting of SE Asian ophiolites

Most of the wrench fault motion in the SE Asian

The structure and tectonics of the ophiolites in SE

4. Relatively autochthonous ophiolites

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

configuration of the Sunda Plate basins (part of the

Omang and Barber, 1996; Fig. 1). The occurrence

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

mantle was probably highly heterogeneous in

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

Philippines (Fig. 1, insert 2). The nature of the oceanic

Atmadja, 1991). The suture zone here is overlain

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

New Guinea Central Range. The geodynamic setting

The nature of the boundary between the Philippine

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

5. Highly displaced ophiolites

characteristics of arc, forearc and backarc settings

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

Rb, Th) indicative of convergent margin settings

Similar observations can be made in the ophiolites

Fig. 9. Possible extension of the Huatung Basin on Luzon Island

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

complete ophiolite reported in Taiwan, other than

(Bader and Pubellier, 2000), probably as a fragment

The closure of Tethyan-derived basins trapped

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

Beibu basin in southern China, the Palawan

Guinea Island, some ophiolites of Timor, Seram

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936

with Triassic (Dow et al., 1988) and Early

restored for the 508 counter clockwise rotation

M. Pubellier et al. / Tectonophysics 392 (2004) 936