A dual doubly vergent orogen in the Banda Arc continent‐arc collision zone as observed on deep seismic reflection profiles

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
New deep seismic reflection profiles across the Banda Arc of Indonesia reveal reflectors in the uppermost 50 km of the lithosphere. Combined with existing earthquake hypocenter locations and focal mechanisms, the new structural geometries inferred from the reflectors yield a more complete analysis of deformation during the past 10 m.y. and provide insights into how strain is partitioned across an orogenic belt in which volcanic arcs and continents converge. A clearly defined Wadati‐Benioff zone, and recent deformation of shelf sediments observed on older shallow seismic profiles, indicated to previous workers that substantial convergence occurred at the Timor Trough. A few focal mechanisms, seafloor escarpments, and recent geodetic surveying indicate that convergence at ∼7 cm yr−1 currently (last 200 kyr?) occurs at the northern margin of the now inactive volcanic arc, the Wetar Thrust zone. Reflectors on the new seismic profiles are interpreted as thrust faults and folds that occur throughout the crust and within the uppermost mantle between the Timor Trough and Wetar Thrust. Specifically, basement reflectors beneath the toe of the accretionary complex have reverse‐sense offsets that imply blind thrusts. The whole crust is horizontally shortened, not only the sedimentary cover rocks that previously deformed into duplexes above a decollément. Reflectors dipping away from both margins of the forearc basin and at the northern margin of the volcanic arc are interpreted as evidence of thrusting. Thus each arc represents a doubly vergent fold‐and‐thrust belt, but only the northern one is currently active. Crustal thicknesses inferred from seismic velocities, reflectors, and gravity anomalies are consistent with the merging of a thinned continental shelf margin with oceanic lithosphere to form an orogenic belt with at present 3–4 km of topographic relief in the region of eastern Timor.