Structural styles and tectonic evolution of the Seram Trough, Indonesia

The Seram Trough is located in the northern part of the Banda Arc-Australian collision zone in eastern Indonesia and is currently the site of contraction between the Bird's Head of New Guinea and Seram Island. It has been interpreted as a subduction trench, an intra-continental thrust zone and foredeep, and a zone of strike-slip faulting. Recently acquired 2D seismic lines clarify its tectonic evolution and relationship to the Bird's Head. Folding in the Early Pliocene formed an anticlinorium running from Misool to the Onin Peninsula of Irian Jaya and produced a newly recognised angular unconformity. The unconformity truncates sediments as old as Middle Jurassic and is an ancient topographic surface with significant relief. It was later folded and now dips south towards the trough where it is covered by up to 3 km of sediments. Initial tilting of the unconformity surface was accompanied by deposition of a transgressive sequence which can be traced into the trough. This is overlain by two sequences which prograde towards the trough. These sequences show progressive rotation of the unconformity surface, gravitational displacement of sediments into the trough, and thrusting which continues to the present day. Contraction occurred in the trough after the Early Pliocene and is younger than the previously suggested Late Miocene age. Thrust faults in the trough deform sediments deposited above the unconformity and detach at the unconformity surface. On Seram thrust faults repeat Mesozoic–Miocene sequences and probably detach at their contact with metamorphic basement. The detachment surface must cut through the Mesozoic-Miocene sequence between Seram and the trough. This work suggests the Seram Trough is not a subduction trench but a foredeep produced in response to loading by the developing fold and thrust belt of Seram, with an associated peripheral bulge to the north. The Seram Trough is interpreted to be a very young zone of thrusting within the Australian continental margin.