Basement rocks of Eastern Sundaland

Lorin Davies, completed PhD project

The basement rocks of Sundaland are poorly understood. In some cases they have not been studied since the pre-war investigations of the Dutch geologists Van Bemmelen and Emmichoven.

Pre-Carboniferous metamorphic rocks in SW Borneo, form part of this basement. They outcrop in the Schwaner Mountains, West Kalimantan, covering an area of around65,000 sq. Km. This ancient core of Borneo is surrounded by Cenozoic sedimentary basins, many of them sourced from Borneo itself.

The intrusion of a Lower cretaceous igneous complex into regionally metamorphosed rocks of the Pinoh Metamorphics raised the Schwaner Mountains, uncovering the metamorphic basement to outcrop.

This project aims to investigate the nature and origin the basement beneath the region by examining the age and provenance of zircons, both detrital and from basement rocks.

Recent Papers –

Max Webb et al., 2020. Isotopic mapping reveals the location of crustal fragments along a long-lived convergent plate boundary. Lithos.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lithos.2020.105687

Max Webb et al., 2020. The history of Cenozoic magmatism and collision in NW New Guinea – New insights into the tectonic evolution of the northernmost margin of the Australian Plate. Gondwana Research.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2019.12.010

Amy Gough et al., 2020. Mid-Cenozoic fluvio-deltaic to marine environments of the Salin Sub-basin, Central Myanmar. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jseaes.2019.104143

Recent News –

Amy Gough and Max Webb attended the Restech 2.0 Virtual Reservoir Conference. Amy Gough presented new SEARG research on the pitfalls of light mineral studies for sedimentary provenance in tropical climates.

Amy Gough was awarded an honorary research fellowship of the British Geological Survey and continues to foster collaborative relationships between SEARG and the BGS.