Spectacular granite outcrop on the Pergua River,
Peninsula Malaysia
The Malay Peninsula lies within the core of Sundaland. The region is underlain by two North south trending basement terranes juxtaposed during the Permo-Triassic by the closure of Palaeo Tethys along the Raub-Bentong Suture. To the west, the Gondwana derived Sibumasu terrane is dominated by dominated by Cambro-ordovician and cool-water Permian faunas. East of the suture zone, the Indochina terrane contains entirely different, warm water faunas that are testament to its near equatorial position during much of the Permian as part of the Cathaysian continent.
The basement rocks of the Thai-Malay Peninsular are variously intruded by the Mesozoic granitoids of the SE Asian Tin Belt, emplaced during subduction related orogenesis. Commonly divided into the Western, Main Range and Eastern Provinces, these granitic rocks dominate the region’s geology accounting for as much as 50%. Mesozoic sediments and metamorphics are also present, especially in the northwest and as part of a north-south trending belt up the centre of the peninsular. Cenozoic rocks are conspicuously absent from the peninsular, save for basins along the narrow coastal plane. It is widely suggested that the Cenozoic has been a time of emergence and thus erosion, with Cenozoic material destined for the large sedimentary basins that surround the peninsula.
Completed projects:
- Cenozoic exhumation constrained via thermochronology
- Sundaland sedimentary provenance studies
- Heavy minerals of the Malay Peninsula
