Publication Date:
2013-03-22
Description:
[1] The D’ Entrecasteaux Island (DEI) gneiss domes are fault-bounded domes with ~2.5 km of relief exposing ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) and high-pressure (HP) metamorphic gneisses and migmatites exhumed in an Oligocene-Miocene arc-continent collision and subduction zone subject to Late Miocene to Recent continental extension. Multi-channel seismic (MCS) reflection data and well data show the Trobriand basin formed as a forearc basin caused by southward Miocene subduction at the Trobriand trench. Subduction slowed at ~8 Ma as the margin transitioned to an extensional tectonic environment. Since then, the Trobriand basin has subsided 1–2.5 km as a broad sag basin with few normal faults deforming the basin fill. South of the DEI, the Good enough rift basin developed after extension began (~8 Ma) as the hanging-wall of the north-dipping Owen-Stanley normal fault that bounds the basin's southern margin. The lack of upper crustal extension accompanying subsidence in the Trobriand and Good enough basins suggests depth-dependent lithospheric extension since 8 Ma has accompanied uplift of the DEI gneiss domes. Structural reconstructions of seismic profiles show 2.3 to 13.4 km of basin extension in the upper crust, while syn-rift basin subsidence values indicate at least 20.7 to 23.6 km of extension occurred in the entire crust since ~8 Ma. Results indicating thinning is preferentially accommodated in the lower crust surrounding the DEI are used to constrain a schematic model of uplift of the DEI domes involving vertical exhumation of buoyant, post-orogenic lower crust, far-field extension from slab rollback, and an inverted two-layer crustal density structure.
Electronic ISSN:
1525-2027
Topics:
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Geosciences
,
Physics
