Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (4) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Charlton, T. R. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

The petroleum potential of inversion anticlines in the Banda Arc

¹ 1 Saint Omer Ridge, Guildford, Surrey GU1 2DD, United Kingdom; charlton{at}manson.demon.co.uk

Tim Charlton received a B.Sc. degree in geology from University College London in 1982 and a Ph.D. from Royal Holloway College, London University, in 1987 for a study of southern West Timor and the offshore Timor Trough. From 1987 to 1989, he carried out postdoctoral studies in eastern Indonesia, including fieldwork in the Tanimbar and Kei islands (Banda Arc) and the Sorong fault zone. Since 1990, he has combined academic research with oil industry consultancy studies, focusing on the eastern Indonesia region. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London.

The Banda Arc in eastern Indonesia and newly independent Timor-Leste (East Timor) is the zone of collision between the northern margin of the Australian continent and an oceanic island arc system bordering the Eurasian plate. Structurally, the Banda forearc is a fold and thrust belt, consisting of the imbricated outer edge of the Australian continent, overlain locally by fragments of the precollisional oceanic forearc. The Banda forearc is an established petroleum province in the island of Seram, but the remainder of the forearc has so far yielded no further exploration success despite close geological similarity to Seram. A major disincentive to exploration in the Banda forearc has been a common perception of structural complexity. This complexity may, however, have been overstated, and this paper presents a simple structural model for the evolution of the Banda forearc.

Key to this model is the recognition of basement-involved inversion structures in the deeper parts of the collision complex. The inverted graben basins are filled with Permian–Jurassic continental margin sequences, including high-quality source rocks of Late Triassic–Early Jurassic age, and contemporaneous potential reservoir sequences, sealed by Middle–Late Jurassic shales. These Jurassic shales also act as an important decollement horizon, separating shallow-level structural complexity from a simpler structural style beneath, characterized by large inversion anticlines. The Oseil field in Seram may be located in such an inversion anticline, and comparable prospective structures are identified elsewhere in the Banda forearc, particularly in Timor and the Tanimbar islands.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				W. R. Dickinson Temper Sands in Prehistoric Oceanian Pottery: Geotectonics, Sedimentology, Petrography, Provenance Geological Society of America Special Papers, January 1, 2006; 406(0): 1 - 160. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]