PROCEEDINGS INDONESIAN ASSOCIATION OF GEOLOGISTS (IAGI) - GEOSEA

30th Annual IAGI Conference and 10th Geosea Regional Congress

Yogyakarta, September 10-12, 2001

Dynamic Response of the Salawati Basin, Eastern Indonesia

to the Sorong Fault Tectonism : Example of Inter-Plate Deformation

Awang H. Satyana

Exploration Dept. Pertamina MPS, Gedung Annex Lt. 5, Jl. Medan Merdeka Timur 1A,
Jakarta 10110, telp. 021-3816164, fax. 021-3813785 e-mail : Awang @pertamina.co.id

Abstract

The Salawati Basin, Eastern Indonesia, is an east-west trending asymmetric

foreland basin located on the northern margin of the Indo-Australian continental
plate. The deformed zone of the left-lateral Sorong Fault separates the basin with
the Caroline-Philippine Sea oceanic plate to the north.

Sorong Fault, a major left-lateral fault in Eastern Indonesia, has strongly controlled
the geology of the Salawati Basin. The fault was responsible for the reversal of the
basin’s polarity and its all related geologic processes. Regional seismic and
stratigraphic studies show that all of the basin's strata from the Late Paleozoic to
pre-Pliocene indicate a south- southeastward thickening revealing the presence of
a long-lasted southern depocenter. At the Miocene-Pliocene, the basin tilted to the
west-southwestward accommodating change in the regional plate readjustment.
This marked the regional inception of the Sorong Fault in the Northern Irian Jaya.
By the mid-Pliocene, the Sorong Fault splayed into the Salawati Basin and
significant geologic changes have taken place since then. The basin subsided very
rapidly to the north-northwest and, isostatically the southern to eastern parts of the
basin were uplifted. Compensating faults due to subsidence and wrench-related
structures developed contemporaneously. This was also coeval with rapid
deposition of the Late Pliocene Klasaman sediments, which triggered shale
diapirism. Petroleum system elements of the basin were affected by these changes.

The Salawati Basin presents a good example of deformation within inter-plate

tectonic regime. The basin has been sandwiched between the Australian
continental plate and Caroline-Philippine Sea oceanic plate. Tectonics of Eastern
Indonesia

1. Introduction

The Salawati Basin, Bird’s Head of Irian Jaya, Eastern Indonesia, is a mature
explored basin firstly ventured for oil in early 1990s. There have been 35 oil fields
discovered, 22 of which are still producing. As a mature basin, there are much
seismic and well data available. Generally, the geology of the basin is well
understood. There have been regional studies conducted including all aspects of

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petroleum geology. However, the role of the Sorong Fault, a major strike-slip fault
terminating the basin to the north, has been lack of attention. Recent studies,
notwithstanding, indicated that this fault has been very important in the evolution
of the basin and, consequently, in the basin’s petroleum system. Good
understanding of this matter will affect exploration ventures.

The paper will summarize the dynamic response of the Salawati Basin to the
Sorong Fault Tectonism. The basin holds a very good example on dynamic
evolution of foreland basin sandwiched between continental and oceanic plates.

2. Geologic Setting

The Salawati Basin is an east-west trending asymmetric foreland basin located on

the northern margin of the Indo-Australian Plate. The basin is presently bounded to
the north and west by the deformed zone of the left-lateral Sorong Fault
separating the basin with the Caroline-Philippine oceanic plate. The basin is
terminated to the south and east by uplifted Miocene carbonates of the Misool -
Onin Geanticline and the Ayamaru Platform, respectively. The Salawati Basin
records the stratigraphic and tectonic history from Palaeozoic time to Recent.

The oldest stratigraphic sequence of the Salawati Basin is the continental basement
rocks of the Siluro-Devonian Kemum metamorphics and Carbo-Permian Aifam
continental margin sediments. Overlying the basement are Mesozoic sediments
(Tipuma and Kembelangan groups), developing only in the southern part of the
basin due to the northern erosional uplift or non-deposition. Tertiary sediments of
the Salawati Basin begin with the late Eocene to early Oligocene transgressive
carbonates of the Faumai Formation. Overlying the Faumai carbonates, are the late
Oligocene shallow marine clastics of the Sirga Formation. Thick carbonates of the
Miocene Kais Formation cover the Sirga clastics. Contemporaneously with the
Kais carbonate deposition, were the deposition of the Miocene lagoonal Klasafet
fine calcareous clastics. In the Pliocene, Klasaman clastics were deposited.
Molassic deposits of the Pleistocene Sele conglomerates ended the stratigraphic
succession.

The main structural framework of the Salawati Basin is the Sorong Fault,
terminating the basin to the north. This is a major left - lateral fault that has been
active since the mid- Pliocene. Present structural style of the basin is dominated by
NNE - SSW normal faults formed as conjugate of the Sorong Fault. The Sorong
Fault has also developed en echelon folds and synthetic left-lateral faults with
normal slip (such as the “Line Six” Fault) in the Salawati Island. This movement
also reactivated older normal faults (started as rifts in the Late Palaeozoic -
Mesozoic time), such as the Cenderawasih Fault, to become antithetic right-lateral
faults. Regionally, the Sorong Fault was responsible for reversal of the basin’s
polarity causing subsidence of the present depocenter.

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3. Sorong Fault Tectonism

A great left-lateral strike-slip fault system trending east-west transects the northern
coast of Irian Jaya and Papua New Guinea. This fault system is connected to the
similar fault system in the vicinity of Banggai-Sula in Eastern Sulawesi making
total length of 1900 kms. In the vicinity of the Bird’s Head, this fault was called by
Visser and Hermes (1962) as the Sorong Fault system, named after it runs through
Sorong town. This fault is part of a large global transcurrent/ transform zone that
separates the westward moving Pacific oceanic (Caroline and Philippine Sea) plate
from the relatively stable Australian continental plate.

Various lineaments have been proposed as the main fault strands of the Sorong
Fault system (Charlton, 1996). Hamilton (1979) considered that the type strand of
the fault system apparently was a belt of pre-Pliocene subduction melange or a
suture zone with left-lateral slip. Any presently active strands of the Sorong Fault
system must serve as transforms to the south ends of the subduction zones of
Sangihe, Halmahera, and Philippine Trench systems. The Sorong Fault system is
presently active, as shown by a number of earthquakes of focal depth less than 60
km (Hutchison, 1989). The focal solutions of earthquakes consistent with left-
lateral strike-slip motion.

A number of estimates have been made as to when the Sorong Fault zone became
an active feature. These include the Oligocene (Pigott et al., 1982 in Charlton,
1996 ), Early Miocene (Hermes, 1968, 1974; Tjia, 1973 in Charlton, 1996; Hall,
1997), Early-Mid Miocene (Hamilton, 1979), post-Mid Miocene (Visser and
Hermes, 1962), Late Miocene (Charlton, 1996), Early Pliocene (Dow and
Sukamto, 1984), and mid-Pliocene (Froidevaux, 1977). The present author
suggests upper Early Pliocene to mid-Pliocene (ca. 4.2 – 3.5 Ma) as the beginning
of the Sorong Fault strongly controlled the Salawati Basin.

4. Dynamic Response of the Salawati Basin

The Sorong Fault strongly controlled the geology of the basin during the late
Pliocene. The fault was responsible for the reversal of the basin’s polarity –
forming the present basin’s depocenter to the north-northwest and uplifting of the
south-east-northeastern parts of the basin, for development of the wrench-related
structures, and for deposition of the Upper Klasaman and Sele sediments.

Seismic and well data suggest that before the period of the Sorong Fault tectonism,
the Salawati Basin had dipped to the south. All strata from the Late Paleozoic to
Early Pliocene thicken to the south indicating the presence of the basin’s
depocenter somewhere in the south. When the Sorong Fault initiated in the north,
the basin started to dip north-northwestward and subsided in this direction very
rapidly since then. Therefore, the Salawati Basin records the history of basin’s
polarity reversal.

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The history of the Salawati Basin’s response to the Sorong Fault Tectonism can be
traced into the boundary of the Mio-Pliocene. The basin’s southern depocenter
started to be uplifted and isostatically, the northern basement high, onto which
most Paleogene and Miocene sediments once onlapped started to subside. This
condition can be related with the regional plate movement around Western Irian
Jaya and was associated with the Neogene Melanesian orogeny which was
resulted from the oblique convergence of the Australian and Caroline-Philippine
Sea plates. The northern part of New Guinea was transected by a major east-west
strike-slip fault system, the New Guinea Megashear (Simandjuntak and Barber,
1996), which continued westwards into the Sorong Fault System. The collision of
the Ontong-Java Plateau with the Caroline Plate to the north of eastern New
Guinea might have triggered this transcurrent fault in its eastern sector. At its
western sector, around the Western Irian Jaya, this fault system was triggered by
the clockwise rotation of the Philippine Sea plate since 5 Ma (basal Pliocene)
(Packham, 1996; Hall, 1997). Isostatic compensation due to this crustal
readjustment has been taken by the Salawati Basin in the way of reversing its
polarity.

In the upper early Pliocene, the basin started to subside to the north-northwest and
this terminated the sedimentation of carbonates dominating since the Early
Tertiary. Isostatically, the basin was uplifted to the south, east, and northeast
comprising mainly of Kais-Klasafet carbonates and mudstones. The uplifted mass
became the provenances for the lower Klasaman clastics mainly comprising shales,
siltstones, bioclasts and limestones.

During the late Pliocene, the Sorong Fault strongly controlled the Salawati Basin.
The basin underwent significant tectonic change. The basin reversed its polarity,
shifted its depocenter which had previously been to the south since the Late
Paleozoic to the north-northwest. The Sorong Fault uplifted northeastern corner of
the basin (Kemum High) and became the sources of Upper Klasaman sediments.
The basin to the north and west of the present Salawati Island subsided due to
loading resulting from multiple thrust sheets within Upper Klasaman sediments.
The Salawati Basin gained its present asymmetric geometry at this time. The basin
was terminated to the south and east by uplifted mass of Misool-Onin Geanticline
and Ayamaru Platform comprising Kais carbonates. These uplifted areas sourced
the calcareous clastics of Upper Klasaman. Present structural configuration of the
basin formed in this period and developed either as compensating structures due to
subsidence or as structures associated with Sorong strike-slip faults (synthetic, en
echelon, antithetic structures). Shale diapirism related with strike-slip faulting
developed in the northern areas where rapid deposition of Upper Klasaman took
place. Sorong Fault Tectonism attained its peak activity during the Pleistocene.
Extensional faults peaked and developed a stress couple of dip-strike slips. The
fault system is still active today. Some of the records of shallow earthquake
activities along the transect of Eastern Sulawesi and Northern Irian Jaya may be
related with continued movement on this fault system. Transcurrent fault
movements in northern New Guinea are attributed to the continued westward
movement of the Caroline/Philippine Sea plate at a rate of 12.5 cm per year (125

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kms per million years) relative to the Australian plate (Simandjuntak and Barber,
1996).

5. Conclusions

• The Salawati Basin records the history of basin polarity reversal from previous
south-southeastern depocenter during the Late Paleozoic – mid-Pliocene to
present northwestern depocenter. The Sorong Fault Tectonism caused this
polarity reversal.
• The geology of the Salawati Basin has been strongly controlled by the Sorong
Fault since the mid-Pliocene. Contemporaneous with this polarity reversal,
compensating faults due to subsidence and wrench-related structures developed,
and debris flow of Upper Klasaman sediments and molassic deposits of Sele
conglomerates were deposited.
• The Salawati Basin presents a good example of deformation within inter-plate
tectonic regime. The basin has been sandwiched between the Australian
continental plate and Caroline-Philippine Sea oceanic plate.

Acknowledgments

The management of Exploration Department Pertamina MPS (Management of

Production Sharing) is acknowledged for opportunity given to present this paper.
This paper is based on a number of regional studies carried out for JOB Pertamina-
Santa Fe Salawati and Santa Fe Energy Resources (SFER) during 1997 to 2000. I
would like to thank the colleagues from the both companies involved in the studies
(especially Yanto Salim, Mimi Sidjaja, Moh. Imron, Agus Sulistyo, and Isnaini ).
Figures presented for this paper were drafted by Sartono and Sugiri from SFER.
Margaretha Eka M.P. from ITB is thanked to have assisted me during the
presentation of this paper.

References

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Indonesia : a constraint on left-lateral displacements of the Sorong fault
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Asia, Geological Society Special Publication, no. 106, p. 465-481.
Dow, D.B. and Sukamto, R., 1984, Late Tertiary to Quaternary tectonics of Irian
Jaya, Episodes, vol. 7, no. 4, p. 3-9.
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