SKRIP

1. Good day. I am Riggs Dominic A Colocar here to present the

tectonic development of the Philippines.
2. As a review, the Philippines can be generalized as a collage of
insular arcs, ophiolitic suites and continental rocks with Eurasian
affinity. It can be divided into two units with different affinities:
the Philippine Mobile Belt with an arc-affinity and the Palawan-
Mindoro Microcontinent with a continental-affinity. The
archipelago is situated in a complex tectonic setting, where its
eastern and western flanks are controlled by two subduction
zones with opposite polarities, and its northern and southern
flanks are controlled by collision zones.
Its eastern coast is dominated by a west-dipping subduction zone
manifested by the Philippine Trench and the East Luzon Trough.
The Philippine Trench is believed to be a young feature (around 5
Ma) based on a shallow Benioff zone and the lack of a defined
accretionary prism, pointing to a maximum of 250 km for the
length of the subducted slab.
Its western coast is dominated by 3 east-dipping subduction zones
manifested by the Manila Trench, Negros Trench and Cotabato
Trench. The Manila Trench is located west of Luzon Island
opposite the East-Luzon Trough, the Manila Trench represents the
morphologic expression of the subduction of the oceanic crust of
the South China Sea under the Luzon Arc. The corresponding
Benioff Zone for this subduction zone is steep on its southern
portion but flattens towards the north. The subduction zone
terminates into the Mindoro-Panay collision zone. The Negros
Trench runs parallel to the western coasts of the islands of Panay
and Negros. It is here that the oceanic crust of the Sulu Sea Basin
 is being consumed, although the corresponding Benioff Zone is
poorly manifested. The Cotabato Trench is young based on a
poorly developed Benioff Zone. The Manila Trench is connected to
the Negros Trench by a shallow trough that passes northeast off
Palawan and The Negros Trench is connected to the Cotabato
Trench via the left-lateral Cotabato Fault.
The northern, southern and some portions of the archipelago’s
western margins are controlled by collision zones, namely the
Taiwan, Mindoro-Panay, and Moluccas Sea. The Taiwan
continent-arc collision represents an active orogenic belt resulting
from the collision of the western edge of the Philippine Sea Plate
with the continental margin of Eurasia. The southern termination
of the Manila Trench is characterized by the transformation of the
subduction of the South China Sea plate under the Luzon Arc into
an arc-continent collision zone within Mindoro. The Mindoro-
Panay collision zone is the site where the Palawan-Mindoro
Microcontinent enters into collision with the central portion of
the Philippine Mobile Belt initiated during the Miocene. The
southern extremities of the archipelago is marked by the
Moluccas Sea arc-arc collision zone where the two-directional
subduction of an oceanic crust causes the collision of the Sangihe
and Halmahera arcs.
3. Just like what I said before, the Philippines can be divided into two
blocks, that is the Philippine Mobile Belt and the Palawan-
Mindoro Microcontinent. These units can be further classified into
lithologic units, namely Metamorphic rocks, ophiolites and
ophiolitic rocks, magmatic rocks and active volcanic arcs, and
sedimentary basins. For the sake of the length of this
presentation, I will only discuss Metamorphic and Ophiolitic rocks
 since they are more relevant in the tectonic development of the
archipelago.
Metamorphic rocks in the Philippines can be divided into two:
pre-Cretaceous metamorphic rocks with continental affinity and
Cretaceous metamorphic rocks with insular arc affinity.
Continental affinity-metamorphic rocks correspond to those
found in North Palawan, Mindoro, Panay and other neighboring
islands that are part of the Palawan-Mindoro Microcontinent.
These formations include the Caramay Schist in Palawan, Halcon
Metamorphic Complex in Mindoro, Romblon Metamorphic
Complex in Romblon, Buruanga Metamorphic Complex in Panay
and Tungauan Schist in Zamboanga. This metamorphic group is
characterized petrographically by the abundance of silica
(continental provenance) and geographically by its restricted
distribution in the western central Philippines. Insular arc affinity-
metamorphic rocks are those found in the Philippine Mobile Belt.
They are basic to ultrabasic in character, suggesting that they
originated from old island arcs.
4. Ophiolitic rocks are widespread in the Philippines and usually
occur together with pre-Ternary metamorphic rocks. Ophiolitic
rocks represent the basement for which magmatic arcs in the
country were developed. Complete sequences can be found in
Zambales, Isabela, southern Palawan and Pujada Peninsula where
the series includes tectonized peridotites progressing to gabbro,
diabase, pillow basalts and finally to the pelagic sediments.
5. To illustrate the tectonic development of the Philippines, I will
utilize the tectonic reconstruction of Hall, R., (2001). I should note
that this model was already revised by Queano (2007).