phanerozoic growth of asia: geodynamic processes and evolution

Journal of Asian Earth Sciences xxx (2012) xxx–xxx

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Journal of Asian Earth Sciences

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Phanerozoic growth of Asia: Geodynamic processes and evolution

Manuel Pubellier a,b,⇑, Florian Meresse b

a Faculty of Geosciences and Petroleum Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, 31750 Tronoh, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysiab Laboratoire de Géologie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, C.N.R.S. UMR 8538, 24 rue Lhomond, Paris 75231, France

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Available online xxxx

Keywords:GeodynamicsContinental GrowthSouth East AsiaBack-arc basinSubductionCollision

1367-9120/$ - see front matter � 2012 Elsevier Ltd. Ahttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jseaes.2012.06.013

⇑ Corresponding author.E-mail address: [email protected]

Please cite this article in press as: Pubellier, MSciences (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsea

a b s t r a c t

Accretion processes often obscured in mountain belts can be documented with great detail in SE Asiawhere these have taken place during the Tertiary. The resulting configuration showing accreted continen-tal strips and tectonised wedges is illustrated by the Tethysides jammed between the northern Laurasiancratons (Baltica and Siberia) and Gondwanian cratons (Africa, Arabia, India and Australia). Eurasiaincreased progressively in size due to the amalgamation of crustal and sedimentary belts. At places wherethe processes are documented in the recent times, they can be included within a ‘‘collision factory’’ whichdisplays the opening of basins by rifting and sea floor spreading within the upper plate, until theyundergo a process of shortening, both stages being subduction-controlled. In SE Asia the early stagesare illustrated in the eastern Sunda arc where the subduction of the Sunda Trench is blocked in Sumbaand Timor region, and flipped into the Flores Trough in less than 2 My. The incipient shortening is at pres-ent taking place in the Pliocene Damar basins. Another stage, where half of the upper plate basin has dis-appeared, is documented in the Celebes Sea. The examples of deformation being transferred furtherinland exist in the northern Celebes Sea and the Makassar Basin. The next important stage is the completeconsumption of the marginal basin where both margins collide and the accretionary wedge is thrust overthe margin, as illustrated in NW Borneo and Palawan. Each of these stages is responsible for a singleshort-lived tectonic event, the succession of several events composes an orogen which may last for over10 My. These events predate the arrival of the conjugate margin of the large ocean, which marks thebeginning of continental subduction as observed in the Himalaya–Tibet region.

These examples show that the closure is generally diachronous through time as illustrated in the Phil-ippines. We observe that the ophiolite obducted in such context is generally of back-arc origin (upperplate) rather than the relict of the vanishing large ocean which is rarely preserved. In the Philippines,once the crust is accreted the subduction zone progressively moved southward until its present position.We propose that the lithospheric mantle of the accreted block is delaminated and rolls back in a contin-uous manner, whereas the crust is deformed and accreted.

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1. Introduction

1.1. The Tethysides

The whole of Eastern Eurasia is involved in a global convergenceof plates since the beginning of the Phanerozoic times. The areacovered by the present day Eurasian plate is composed of cratonsthat have formed prior to the Phanerozoic and have since thenacted as large jaws which crushed smaller continental fragmentstogether with relicts of former oceanic domains. Among these do-mains were the Paleotethys and the Tethys oceans which bothacted as zippers that opened toward the west.

As a result, the most prominent collision belt of the world: theTethyan belt is located between a group of major continental blocks

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y (M. Pubellier).

., Meresse, F. Phanerozoic growes.2012.06.013

composed of Africa–Arabia–India in the south and Baltic–Siberianblocks in the north. Between these blocks undeformed during thePhanerozoic is an apparently complex system of microblocks andtectonic belts (Fig. 1). This assemblage is narrow in southern Europeand remarkably wide in Eastern Asia. The global understanding ofthe evolution of this area exists and many reconstructions at smallscale have been performed (Metcalfe, 1996, 1999; Hall, 1998, 2002).On the other hand the geological history of each local area in wes-tern Tethys (Lee and Lawver, 1985; Stampfli and Borel, 2004), orSouth East Asia (Audley-Charles et al., 1988; Pubellier et al., 2003;Harris, 2003a,b) has been generally documented and mapped.Geological maps at the scale of Eurasia illustrate the mean age ofthe main geological entities, but do not allow a clear correlationof the tectonic belts during the Phanerozoic and cannot help tounderstand the evolution trough time.

In order to understand the global accretion tectonics whichformed the Asian continent, one needs to accept that the exact

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Fig. 1. The tectonic belts including continental fragments from the Mediterraneanto the SE Asian regions. The central part of the map represents the Tethyan realmwhich developed to the south of an earlier Early Paleozoic ‘‘Caledonian’’ and LatePaleozoic ‘‘Variscan’’ entity. This mega structure is narrower to the west in theMediterranean region and becomes wider in Eastern Asia between Siberia andAustralia. The various cratons structured prior to the Late Proterozoic arerepresented in grey colour. Modified from the Structural Map of Eastern Eurasiapublished by CGMW (Pubellier, 2008).

2 M. Pubellier, F. Meresse / Journal of Asian Earth Sciences xxx (2012) xxx–xxx

age of the block juxtaposition is often debated and that this dock-ing may be diachronous along large belts. Then the litho-strati-graphic units may be separated into crustal blocks - often ofcontinental nature but also of mafic oceanic plateau or volcanicarc affinity - which have been jammed into the tectonic belts,and wedges which are composed of packages of sedimentary rocksthat have undergone intense deformation during the shorteningstages. These wedges have been studied for decades by geologistswith varying tectonic concepts, which tried to depict the evolutionof sedimentary and crustal rocks undergoing varying degrees ofdeformation and metamorphism.

1.2. Crustal fragments, sedimentary and orogenic wedges

Wedges are well known for recent events and usually incorpo-rate the deep sea sediments of the former oceanic domains in the

Fig. 2. Cartoon showing the simplified and generalised evolution of the accretion processupper plate. (b) A crustal morphostructure (or asperity) reaches the subduction zone andThe subduction zone jumps at the receding side of the asperity creating a new plate bounslab break-off may take place. (d) This results in the accretion of crustal morphostructuresubduction zone toward the oceanic domain. (e) The final stage is the subduction of the cosubduction takes place.

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early stages of subduction. Then as the continental margin enteredthe subduction, an increasing amount of proximal sediments andeven continental shelf sediments were stacked in the accretionarywedge (Wakita and Metcalfe, 2005). The latter are generally pre-served in the foothills of recent or isolated orogens. Finally, inthe late stages of the basin closure, the basement rocks may be alsostacked in the wedge, thus exhuming metamorphosed sedimentsor crust of the down-going plate, together with metamorphosedsediments of the deep accretionary wedge or the subduction chan-nel. When highly metamorphosed, these sediments represent the‘‘cratonized rocks’’ of orogenic wedges and are difficult to distin-guish from the old metasediments of the cratons surrounding theorogen.

Then, it is obvious that we can separate the tectonic units ofEastern Asia which represent Pacific-derived blocks and wedgesnow accreted in a large N–S trending belt between Eastern Siberiaand New Guinea Island (Fig. 1). This belt includes the IndosinianKolyma–Olomon system in the north which accreted continentalfragments of debated size against Siberia. Relicts of melanges andophiolites exist between the Siberia and the accreted units(Oxman, 2003; Khudoley and Prokopiev, 2007) and the deforma-tion front propagated westward in the Verkhoyansk until the Cre-taceous. The rest of the Pacific-derived belt is Late Cretaceous andTertiary. It terminated the long lasting Mesozoic Andean-type sub-duction of the Yanshanian arc and extends from Kamchatka to off-shore South Vietnam and Malaysia. Out of this scheme (Fig.1), theUral Mountain belt also constitutes an exception. It stands out ofthe N–S continental jaws, and was formed during Cretaceous timeswithout later reactivation, after having welded the Baltic and theSiberian blocks.

1.3. Opening and closure of marginal basins, as a product of the samesubduction

However, in the case of most large tectonic belts, collisionalorogeny lasted �20 My or longer and involved the accretion ofincipient back-arc or forearc oceanic crust (ophiolites), microconti-nents, oceanic plateaux, and island arc systems into continentalmargins prior to final continent–continent collisions (Fig. 2). Thesediscrete and short-lived accretionary events may result in slabbreakoff, subduction jump and reversal, tectonic extension and

es in SE Asia. (a) Subduction roll-back triggers the opening of a back-arc basin in thegenerates perturbation at the plate boundary due to its thickness and buoyancy. (c)

dary. As a result deformation takes place in the arc and the back-arc areas, whereas aand the mechanism of accretion may repeat several times; thus pushing the active

njugate margin of the original ocean. No subduction jump can occur and continental



M. Pubellier, F. Meresse / Journal of Asian Earth Sciences xxx (2012) xxx–xxx 3

rifting, crustal uplift and exhumation (core complex formation),and lithospheric mantled-involved magmatism within a broadzone of convergence. Each of these phenomena leaves its uniquegeological fingerprint in the rock record, but terminal continentalcollisions strongly overprint the existing record as a result oflarge-scale shortening, crustal thickening, high-T metamorphism,and remobilization of lower and intermediate crust due to ductiledeformation and anatectic melting. It is thus often difficult to deci-pher the chronology and mechanisms of the previous episodicevents, which have contributed to the prolonged tectonic historyof ancient orogenic belts. In SE Asia, because the subduction accre-tion-process has extended into the Neogene and is still active to-day, the mechanisms resulting in the accretion may be stillobserved. Therefore, SE Asia provides a natural laboratory to exam-ine various crustal and mantle processes involved in the evolutionof accretionary-type orogenic belts and a real-time snapshot imageof different stages of orogenic build-up.

This paper presents a close look at different stages of orogenyand mountain building development in the SE Asian ‘‘Collision Fac-tory’’. Using seismic imaging and tomography results, field-basedstructural mapping, and marine geological and geophysical data,we document the structural architecture of several key convergentzones in this region and discuss the subduction zone geodynamics,collision mechanisms and tectonic processes involved in their evo-lution. Indeed the comparison of the modern setting of SE Asia andolder orogens has been noted before (Harris, 1992; Hall, 2009), butit is presented here as a succession of discrete zones of conver-gence within the broader SE Asian Collision Factory that displaysprogressively more advanced phases of collision tectonics withcharacteristic structural, metamorphic, and magmatic features,prior to the impending Australia–Eurasia continental collision inthe future. We propose the SE Asian Collision Factory as a modernanalogue for the Mesozoic–Cenozoic Tethyan system, from whichthe Alpine–Himalayan orogenic belt was born.

2. Unzipping of SE Asian continental margin and marginalbasins evolution

The Present-day structural architecture of the SE Asian conti-nental margin (Fig. 3a) is a result of prolonged extension alongthe southern margin of mainland Asia since the Cretaceous(Holloway, 1982; Taylor and Hayes, 1983) and includes a succes-sion of marginal basins that are separated by ribbon continentsand continental fragments (Fig. 3a, Rangin et al., 1989; Ranginand Silver, 1995). From north to south and away from mainlandChina, these basins and continental fragments are the South ChinaSea and the continental Palawan Block, the extended compositecontinental and oceanic crust of the NW Sulu Sea separated bythe Cagayan volcanic arc; the Sulu Sea back-arc basin; the westernedge of Mindanao and the Sulu arc, characterised by continentalbasement; the Celebes basin floored by oceanic crust; and, theNorthern Arm of Sulawesi, partly underlain by continental crust(Taylor and Hayes, 1983; Rangin et al., 1989; Rangin, 1990; Silverand Rangin, 1990; Cullen et al., 2010, Fig. 3b).

All the basins have opened successively during the Tertiary in adiachronous manner (Pubellier, 2004) in a fan-shaped pattern onthe eastern half of the Sunda Plate. The first basin that openedwas the Proto South China Sea, which is dated indirectly by theCretaceous/Paleogene sediments of the NW Borneo wedge. Othersmaller basins did not reach the oceanic stage like the Beibu basinand the Palawan Trough which opened on both side of the SouthChina Sea during Paleogene times (Rangin, 1990, Fig.3a). The Cele-bes Sea opened during the Middle Eocene (47 Ma, Weissel, 1980;Silver et al., 1989), followed by the South China Sea during the Oli-gocene (33–15 Ma, Taylor and Hayes, 1983; Briais et al., 1993) and


the Sulu Sea during late Early Miocene (18 Ma, Rangin et al., 1989).Further south, the North Banda Basin opened in the Late Miocene(Hinshberger et al., 2001) and the Damar (South Banda Basin) inthe Pliocene (6.5–3.5 My). The last two basins therefore were cre-ated after the beginning of the shortening of the northern basins,south of the collision zone of Sulawesi in the Early and Middle Mio-cene (Kundig, 1956; Villeneuve et al., 2000).

3. Basin collapse and accretion tectonics; different stages

3.1. The subduction factory

Southeast Asia and NW Australia constituted the initial ‘‘prior toshortening’’ stage (Fig.3b, Fig. 4a). The simplified example shows amargin extended after the effect of the Sunda Trench pull. Thisstage prevailed in SE Asia until the Early Miocene when the firstcontinental fragments derived from Australia arrived into the sub-duction zone in Sulawesi Island. From the Miocene to the Present,the Eurasian margin has undergone shortening which jumped fromone basin to another. We present a conceptual model of the colli-sion factory in SE Asia (Fig. 4), along a virtual section cutting acrossseveral basins that opened on the eastern part of the Sunda Plate(Harris, 2003a,b). The basins opened mostly in the Cenozoic andare presently undergoing various stages of shortening. The short-ening started in the Neogene (Oligocene or Early Miocene, depend-ing on the area). Each stage of the progressive shortening of thebasins is illustrated by one example, and the sections have beenintegrated into a single cartoon (Fig. 4).

3.2. Subduction jump and beginning of shortening; the Sumba–Timorstage

The Sumba–Timor stage (Fig. 4b, Fig. 5) illustrates the beginningof the shortening. Following the arrival of the NW Australian con-tinental margin at the trench, the collision zone underwent a shortperiod of intense shortening via thrusting and surface uplift visibleon the Island of Timor (Audley-Charles, 1986; Harris et al., 1998).The resulting accretionary wedge has incorporated fragments ofthe subduction backstop (Harris, 2006) and back-thrusting thickseries on the Australian shelf. In order to pinpoint the beginningof the deformation, we have to observe the events taking place atPresent in the fore-arc domain at the longitude of Sumba Island(Fleury et al., 2009). There, the passage into the subduction ofthe sharp continent-ocean boundary, combined with crustal natureof the Sumba–Savu block caused the subduction to jump into thebackarc domain (Silver et al., 1983, 1986). The newly formed short-ening zone (not yet a subduction zone, Harris, 2011) is as young as1 Ma and has not yet created a volcanic arc. The shortening in Sum-ba island is illustrated by 400 m uplift of reefal terraces on thenorthern side of the island and tremendous mass wasting on thesouthern side in front of the subducting plate (Merritts et al.,1998; Fleury et al., 2009). GPS velocities indicate that althoughthe ancient trench is still prominent in the morphology, it has beenrecently abandoned and most of the convergence is nowadaysbeing accommodated in the new trench (Genrich et al., 1996; Bocket al., 2003; Nugroho et al., 2009); this indicates the rapidity of thesubduction blocking and transfer along the Flores and WetarThrust. However, whether it is a back thrust or a proper subductionreversal it is still a matter of discussion.

3.3. Transfer of deformation and subduction of the back-arc basin; theMakassar and Celebes Sea stage

The Makassar basin (Fig. 4c, Fig. 6), which opened in theEocene as a southward propagator of the Celebes Sea, is an exam-



Fig. 3. (a) Mechanisms and chronology of opening of SE Asian basins in the Sunda Plate from the Late Cretaceous to the Late Pliocene (modified from Pubellier, 2004). (b)Simplified crustal section across a complex zone where most marginal basins have already collapsed. Several basins have opened within the Eurasian margin, most of themare in the process of shortening by subduction. The Proto South China Sea has completely disappeared and the South China Sea remains untouched. BB: Beibu basin; SCS:South China Sea, SS: Sulu Sea, CS: Celebes Sea, NBB: North Banda Basin, DB, Damar Basin.


ple of how strain may be transmitted in the upper plate. The con-tinental crust has been stretched significantly, and the basin wasin the early stage of ocean floor accretion (presence of buried vol-canoes) when it aborted. It is thus narrow and records well theshortening. The shortening in central Sulawesi is marked by amiddle Miocene unconformity (Kunding, 1956) but may havestarted by the end of Oligocene due to the docking of the EastSulawesi continental block. The shortening resumed shortly afterthe collision of the Sula microcontinent (Australian affinity) dur-ing the Pliocene. The deformation is marked by the stacking ofcontinental crust in Sulawesi (Parkinson, 1998; Calvert and Hall,2003), and the development of a remarkable accretionary wedgecovering the eastern half of the basin. However, the strain hasbeen transferred to the opposite margin of the basin on easternBorneo in the Kutai Basin which is affected by decollement andfolding (Chambers and Daley, 1995). It is well expressed in thethin-skin detachments and folds of the Kutei Basin in the Mio-cene and Pliocene. Deformation also reactivated the ophiolitic


and metamorphic units of the Meratus Mountains that werethrust onto the Barito Basin in the late Miocene (Pubellieret al., 1998).

The Celebes Sea (Fig. 4d, Fig. 7), formerly connected to Makassarhas almost disappeared by half into the Sulawesi Trench and illus-trate how much shortening a marginal basin can suffer (Fig 4d) .The subduction started by the Late Miocene accommodating theclockwise rotation of the North Arm of Sulawesi (Walpersdorfand Vigny, 1998). The subduction is a subduction reversal responseto the subduction of the Sula microcontinent beneath Sulawesi(Silver and Rangin, 1990). It is assumed that the ridge is almostcompletely subducted. Strain is somehow also transmitted to thenorth where intra-oceanic deformation takes place. The subduc-tion is marked by a thick wedge and integrated crustal fragmentsof probable oceanic origin. Eocene ophiolite also exists on theNorth Arm of Sulawesi, and may be a part of the southern portionof the basin obducted on the margin during the early stage of theshortening.



Fig. 4. Cartoon showing a conceptual model of the collision factory in SE Asia. The section is for reference in order to locate the basins, and cuts across several basins thatopened in the Cenozoic and presently undergoing various stages of shortening. Each stage of the progressive shortening of the basins is illustrated by one of the examplespresented in the text. Sections illustrate the stage prior to shortening (4a), the subduction reversal in Timor–Sumba (4b), the Transmission of deformation in Makassar (4c),the partial collapse of a basin in Celebes Sea (4d), the complete closure of a basin in NW Borneo and Palawan (4e), the jump to another weaker subduction zone (4f).

Fig. 5. Simplified cross-sections showing the various cases for basin closure and accretion of crustal blocks, Sumba–Flores indicates early shortening and incipient subductionreversal.


Please cite this article in press as: Pubellier, M., Meresse, F. Phanerozoic growth of Asia: Geodynamic processes and evolution. Journal of Asian EarthSciences (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jseaes.2012.06.013


Fig. 6. Simplified cross-sections showing the various cases for basin closure and accretion of crustal blocks, Makassar shows transmission of deformation through the upperplate.

Fig. 7. Simplified cross-sections showing the various cases for basin closure and accretion of crustal blocks, Celebes Sea shows back arc basin collapse.

Fig. 8. Simplified cross-sections showing the various cases for basin closure and accretion of crustal blocks, Borneo–Palawan illustrates complete back arc basin closureoverboarding of the sedimentary wedge into the neighbouring basin.

Fig. 9. Simplified cross-sections showing the various cases for basin closure and accretion of crustal blocks, Bird’s Head of West Papua shows complete closure of a basin andtransfer into an other subduction zone.


Please cite this article in press as: Pubellier, M., Meresse, F. Phanerozoic growth of Asia: Geodynamic processes and evolution. Journal of Asian EarthSciences (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jseaes.2012.06.013


Fig. 10. Illustration of the diachronism of docking in the Philippines. The youngest noticeable unconformity is dated by biostratigraphic markers in the literature, from Luzonisland in the north to the southern Mindanao island. The error bars are important but the younging of the last deformation event toward the south appears. The Present-daysubduction blocking is taking place in the Molucca Sea.


3.4. The complete consumption of a back-arc basin; the Proto SouthChina Sea and the NW Borneo wedge

The NW Borneo wedge (Fig 4e, Fig. 8) shows an advanced stageof shortening in which the basin (the Proto South China Sea) hasbeen entirely subducted and the opposite margin has been en-gaged into the wedge. The NW Borneo wedge presently fringesthe SE edge of the South China Sea. However, the wedge was cre-ated by subduction of a basin similar to that of the South ChinaSea (the Proto China Sea), which has been entirely recycled backinto the mantle via subduction. The wedge started to build up inthe Eocene by subduction of the deep marine sediments formingthe Rajang Mountains. In the Oligocene and early Miocene, moreproximal turbidites were incorporated into the wedge forming


the Crocker Range. By the late Miocene the wedge had propagatedover most of the opposite margin of the Proto China Sea andstarted creeping on top of the continental block of the South ChinaSea, by a complex combination of thrust faulting and gravity slid-ing. Although the South China Sea is not really shortening at pres-ent, it has experienced a short-lived compression on its northernmargin in North Vietnam and exhibits one compressional focalmechanism at the fossil ridge.

3.5. The New Guinea stage

The most advanced stage may be observed in West Papua (Fig4f, Fig. 9). The continental block of Bird’s Head in West Papuahas largely disappeared into the subduction of the Lengguru Fold



Fig. 11. Simplified sections in the Southern Philippines (Mindanao and the Molucca Sea) showing the cessation of the double subduction and the docking of the Philippine arcby overthrust over the Sunda margin.


and Thrust Belt (FTB). The wedge propagated from the lateMiocene to the late Pliocene onto the continental shelf sedimentsuntil the friction at the base of the wedge became too intense.About 2 Ma, shortening was accommodated into the crust andthe deformation became thick-skinned (Bailly et al., 2009). At thesame time the front of the Lengguru Fold-and-thrust Belt stoppedits progression, and shortening was taken up by the formation ofduplex structures in the internal zones of the wedge. The youngrocks of the continental basement have undergone high-pressuremetamorphic conditions and are already exhumed in the Wanda-men Peninsula. The back-stop of the Lengguru FTB is occupied bya basin floored with oceanic crust and thrust over Mesozoic gran-ites which are presently undergoing extension. Nowadays, exhu-mation is very active in the internal zones with active seismicityshowing extension, and the compression has been transferred intothe next basin in the Seram Trench (Bailly et al., 2009; Sapin et al.,2009). It can be anticipated that the Present framework will changeagain after 2My because the Seram Trench is already reaching thecontinental block. Ultimately the Bird’s Head block will be com-pletely subducted and the relicts of the basement will only beaccessible in the High Pressure (HP) rocks.

4. Example of the Philippines; rapidity of docking anddiachronism

Because of its large variety of examples, SE Asia offers the pos-sibility to analyse in good conditions the timing of collision. Con-vergence is rarely frontal, and the accreted belts often reach thecontinental plate obliquely, resulting in shear partitioning (Fitch,1972). Therefore the accretion is diachronous. Classical examplesare the accretion of the Luzon Arc in Taiwan (Angelier et al.,1986), and Timor (Audley-Charles, 1986; Harris et al., 1998). Inthe Philippines (Fig. 10), the almost complete coverage of the mo-bile belt by marine environment allows us to date accurately the


timing of the collision of the Philippine Arc with the Eurasian mar-gin (Quebral et al., 1996; Pubellier et al., 1996, 1999). The Philip-pine Arc is still subducting in the Molucca Sea beneath theforearc basin of the Sangihe arc seated at the eastern edge of theSunda Plate, the ocean floor of the former Molucca Sea betweenthem having been consumed in a double verging subduction zone(Fig. 11; Moore and Silver, 1982; Hall, 2002). The collision zonesemerged in Mindanao 0.5 My ago and becomes older along striketoward the north (2 Ma in Northern Mindanao, Quebral et al.,1996), 3 My in the central Philippines, and 5–9 My in the northernPhilippines (Aurelio et al., 1991; Barrier et al., 1991).

In the Philippines, the former volcanic belt of the Philippine SeaPlate is presently thrusted on the crustal fragments of the Eurasianmargin (Mitchel et al., 1986; Rangin et al., 1989; Pubellier et al.,1999; Yumul et al., 2009). The passage from the subduction ofthe Philippine arc to its thrusting over the margin implies adecollement of the arc’s upper crust (Fig. 11).

5. Docking on a section; implications on the lithospheric mantle

Effects of the subduction of volcanic edifices, crustal blocks, orother morphostructures have been largely documented in nature(Von Huene et al., 1995) and have been reproduced in sand-boxexperiments (Dominguez et al., 1998).

The tectonized belts where accretion processes have occurreddo not reach elevations above 1000 m above sea level, indicatingthat no underlying subducted continental crust exists. However,uplift is documented by reef terraces, incised valleys or FT analysesand is generally attributed to the isostatic response of slab detach-ment (Hutchison et al., 2000; Morley and Back, 2008; Sapin et al.,2011). The presence of adakitic melts with High Field Strength Ele-ment enrichment or Niobium Enriched Basalts (NEB) also attestsfor the melting of ocean crust resulting from adiabatic decompres-sion (Sajona et al., 1994, 1997; Maury et al., 1998) following slab



Fig. 12. Two different behaviours for the accommodation of the subduction jump. The accretion is marked classically in the crust by a shift toward the new trench when theprevious one is abandoned. The lithospheric mantle on the contrary may be difficult to shear and undergoes delamination in order to follow a normal roll back.


breakoff during later stage of basin closer and continentalsubduction. The accretion of crustal blocks is not restricted to thecrust, but also involves the lithospheric mantle. When a crustalfragment is jammed into the subduction, the subduction jumpsto the opposite side of the block but the mantle may not be in-volved in the process and simply rolls back, in order to resumethe subduction. This would imply a progressive detachment ofthe lithospheric mantle until the tear reaches the rupture pointof the subduction jump, thus allowing the convergence to con-tinue, thus bringing heat into the system and creating melting ofthe crust (Fig. 12).

6. Conclusion

The collision factory in SE Asia illustrates a tectonic process ofcontinental growth and provides a framework for other collisiondriven events. In addition to the subduction jumps or reversalsor slab breakoff, there is room for adakitic melts and Nb EnrichedBasalt magmatism which is documented for young back-arc basinssubduction or post-collisional setting (Sajona et al., 1994, 1997).The evolution which is presented here also integrates local escapetectonics (N. Arm of Sulawesi) and crustal uplift and exhumationwhich may take place either in extensional setting like in the SouthChina Sea margin (Chan et al., 2010), or during shortening(Spencer, 2010). In addition, the well documented sliver platemigration parallel to the margin (Fitch, 1972; McCaffrey, 1996) is


active both prior to the block docking and after the collision iscompleted (Pubellier and Cobbold, 1996), and participates in thecrustal dispersal.

The final stage of the collision factory corresponds to the arrivalof the opposite margin of the former ocean basin into the subduc-tion. The subduction is not capable of jumping to the opposite sideof the subducting continent, nor inside the upper continental platewhich has previously been shortened and thickened, and does notleave any thin crust for accommodating the shortening. The sub-duction of the continental plate will create an important upliftdue to the underplating of the continental crust. The uplift willin turn be responsible for important erosion of the previous tec-tonic features described above. In addition the superposition ofcontinental crusts induced HT metamorphism which contributesthe obliteration of the early events.

Acknowledgments

This article is a review paper from ideas that were discussedduring the four workshops organized during the IGMA5000 projectof the Geological Map of Asia at scale 1:5 M. under the aegis ofCGMW. M.P. belongs to Centre National de la Recherche Scientifi-que (CNRS/UMR8538). This paper benefited from discussions withmany local experts including Yldirim Dilek from the Miami Univer-sity of Ohio.




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