Possibility of Igneous Intrusion at Gunung

Semanggol
Preliminary Study Using Magnetic Survey

Amatul Syafi Abdul Basit

Department of Petroleum Geoscience
Universiti Teknologi Petronas
Seri Iskandar, Malaysia
amatulsyafi@gmail.com

Abstract in the book Geology of Peninsular Malaysia, a
comprehensive study has been conducted on Semanggol
Formation in terms of its stratigraphy, sedimentology and
paleontology in three major outcrops located in Kedah [1].
However, studies on Gunung Semanggol itself have been limited
[2]. The geological map released by Department of Minerals &
Geoscience of Malaysia [3] suggested that S-type igneous
intrusion is present and may have played a role in the formation
of the hill and a breccia formation found at an abandoned quarry
in the northeast appear to have granitic matrix. Samples of the
matrix were taken for thin section and x-ray diffraction analysis.
The result shown that crystalline quartz is the major component
of the matrix. Therefore, it is fairly conclusive that intrusion did
occur at some point here in Gunung Semanggol. Further study is
then conducted through magnetic survey. It is found that there is
a high possibility that intrusion occurred at a larger scale,
indicated by the anomalies trending in the northeast and
northwest direction, cross-cutting the subsurface formation in
what appear to be a series of dykes. However, depending on
magnetic data alone is insufficient to determine the lithological
boundaries of the intrusive body. Therefore, it is recommended
to supplement the presently available magnetic data with other
ground geophysical survey, such as gravity method that can
delineate between igneous and sedimentary rocks based on its
density contrast.
Keywordssubsurface study; magnetic survey; thin section
analysis; XRD; magnetic anomaly map
I. INTRODUCTION
Geographically, Gunung Semanggol is located around
11km northwest of Taiping and about 230km northwest of
Kuala Lumpur. The study area covers the hill at about 20km.
Gunung Semanggol is located in the Northwestern Domain of
the peninsula and is part of the Triassic Semanggol Formation
that stretches from north of Kedah southwards to northwest of
Perak. It is suggested in [1] that tectonic activity in the Late
Triassic that forms the Main Range, Central Belt and Eastern
Belt plutons may have played a part in the formation of the
hills. This is supported by the exposed outcrop resulted from
mining activities that is believed to be igneous in nature [4]. In
order to study the subsurface structure of the hill, geophysical
survey using magnetic method is chosen. The resulting
magnetic anomaly map, including residual and regional map is
then integrated together for qualitative interpretation. On the
side, thin section analysis and XRD test is conducted on the
breccia matrix collected from the abandoned quarry site for
mineralogical study.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Tectonic Evolution of Peninsular Malaysia
The Malay Peninsula comprised of two tectonic blocks,
Sibumasu and Indochina Terrane that was progressively
assembled from parts of supercontinent Gondwana up to Late
Triassic. The collision of the two tectonic plate formed the
peninsula that is subsequently classified into three distinct parts
- the Western Belt which is part of the Sibumasu Terrane,
Central and the Eastern Belt which was part of the Indochina
Terrane, cumulatively known as Sukhotai Arc or East Malaya
Block. Sandwiched between the Western Belt and Sukhotai
Arc is what known as Bentong-Raub suture zone, believed to
hold the remnants of Palaeo-Tethys. The ancient ocean basin
was derived from the separation of Sibumasu from
Gondwanaland in Lower Devonian until it closes in Lower
Triassic during the aforementioned collision. Following the
collision is the subduction event that leads to Indosinian
orogeny in Early Permian which is associated with the
andesitic volcanism that produced the I-type granitoids
observed in the east. Eventually, slab break-off and rising of
asthenospheric plumes forms S-type granitoids observed within
the Western and Northwestern Belt [5].
B. Geology of Semanggol Formation
At present, Semanggol Formation stretches from north of
Kedah southwards to north of Perak in three location. The
formation was presumed to be part of a once continuous basin
before separated by wrench faulting that predates the intrusion
in the Late Triassic. Burton then divided the formation into
three informal member, from oldest to the youngest Chert,
Rhythmite and Conglomerate Member. Chert member were
initially deposited in a foredeep basin during Sibumasu-
Indochina collision. Then, it is uplifted becoming part of the
accretionary complex. Subaerial exposure leads to erosion
which contributes terrestrial sediment into the forearc basin, to obtain bearing and coordinates of each field station. During
thus forming the Rhythmite and conglomerate member [1, 5]. acquisition, time of the day is recorded at all station to account
for the diurnal variation and the time lapse between each
C. Magnetic Survey
reading is used to compute the corrected intensity value. The
Magnetic method relies heavily on the magnetic loop technique is employed to acquire data. In every loop,
susceptibility of minerals contained in the rocks, especially
ferromagnetic minerals contained in rocks that can induced
considerable magnetic variation relative to Earths magnetic
field. These localised anomalies becomes the target and priority
in magnetic surveying and data interpretation in post-survey
stage. For subsurface study, magnetic survey is efficient and
effective if there is a significant variation in susceptibility
between bedrocks. For instance, igneous rocks have higher
magnetic susceptibility, attributed primarily to the presence of
magnetite, compared to sedimentary rocks. By exploiting this
inherent property of rocks, magnetic method had been used
numerous times to investigate subsurface igneous bedrocks [6,
7].

III. METHODOLOGY

A. Geological Study
In the field, few equipment were used for tasks aimed to
fulfill one of the projects objective geological map. Tasks
included were to take strike and dip for formation bedding and
joints, to record coordinates of outcrops and sample collection.
The essential tools include azimuth compass with clinometer,
GPS tool, hammer and sample bags. After geological
fieldwork, recorded measurements and coordinates were
utilized to produce a geological map using ArcGIS.

B. Petrochemical Study
To obtain the diffraction pattern, Brukers D2 Phaser was
used for the analysis by means of step scanning to obtain a
more accurate result, as opposed to continuous scanning.
Typical setting of parameters were used: 5 to 80 of 2 scan
range, step size of 0.2 per step and 0.1 second per step of
exposure time. In the following phase analysis, Brukers
Diffrac.eva suite and Match! software is used for a quick
phase identification by search-matching the acquired
diffraction pattern with known crystal pattern stored in
multiple reference database from ICDD1 and COD2.
Percentage of crystallinity is also obtained.
To create a thin section, a rock sample is cut into
appropriate size, small enough to be attached onto a glass slide
with epoxy. After, the rock is polished on a grinder to reduce
its thickness to about 30m before finally cleaned and covered
with another glass slip. The thin section is then studied under
an optical microscope (Leica DM750-P) to analyse its
mineralogy content.
C. Magnetic Survey & Data Processing
Magnetic survey is conducted using proton-precession
magnetometer to measure the total magnetic intensity (TMI)
by means of discrete measurement at sampling intervals of
few seconds. Concurrently, GPS tool and compass were used
Figure 1 shows the location of Gunung Semanggol. The location of field
1
International Centre for Diffraction Data station is indicated by the black dots. Circled area is where the abandoned
2
Crystallography Open Database quarry is located. Certain areas are inaccessible, especially along the
spine of the hill as well as the southeastern flank. This resulted in some
gaps in the anomaly map produced due to the unavailable data.
field station is referenced to a base station and every base
station is referenced to a main base station. Any reference
station needs to be situated in area with minimal magnetic
interference and each field stations were located at least 20m
apart. At each station, three readings were taken and averaged.
Raw TMI data obtained in the field is then processed by
applying diurnal and IGRF3 correction.
Ha = Ht Diurnal-IGRF (1)
Where Ha is magnetic anomaly field and Ht is Earths
magnetic field.
D. Magnetic Anomaly Map
Computed anomaly data is imported as ASCII file into
Oasis Montaj including coordinate information in UTM
format. Magnetic anomaly map is then generated through
Kriging interpolation method. In the following procedure, the
magnetic anomaly map is subjected to interactive filtering
using the MAGMAP module provided by Geosoft. MAGMAP
provides a wide range of 2D Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)
filters, enabling efficient and robust data processing in Fk
domain. After data is transformed into wavenumber, the radial
average power spectrum is also computed. Then, suitable type
of filter is chosen to perform regional and residual separation.
For residual map, high pass Butterworth filter is applied while
for regional map, low pass Gaussian filter is applied. Both are
used to attain meaningful map for interpretation.
pattern matches the reference database and has over 0.86 figure
of merit (FoM), i.e. quartz is most likely to be present in the
sample. There are also other minor phases identified, but with
lower FoM of around 0.6, hence it is less likely to be present in
the sample. Those include magnesium, lithium, sodium, iron
and aluminium and all are the common constituents of silicate
minerals. Overall, the sample shows 88.4 percent crystallinity
while the rest of it is amorphous.
With over 80 percent crystallinity, it is fair to deduce that
the breccia matrix is felsic in nature. This is consistent with the
fact that S-type granitoids that are present in both the
Northwestern and Central Belt formed the Bintang Range in
the east. S-type granitoids are prone to be peraluminous, have
relatively high quartz content (65 to 75%) but low alkaline
mineral, and often characterized by metasedimentary
inclusions due to it being derived from partial melting of
sedimentary rocks in supracrustal region [8].

IV. RESULT & DISCUSSIONS

A. Thin Section Analysis

Thin section analysis was done on the samples collected Figure 2 shows the close-up of the breccia formation found in the
from the abandoned quarry (Fig. 2). The focus of this analysis abandoned quarry site. Two major type of clasts can be observed here
is to study the mineral content of the holocrystalline matrix black shale and light greyish chert.
from the breccia outcrop found in that location. Fig. 3 shows
quartz mineral as the primary constituent of the aphanitic,
holocrystalline matrix of breccia. It is colourless, has low relief
and has evidence of deformation, as indicated by the striations
under plain polarized light (PPL). Under cross polarized light
(XPL) the interference colour is either pale blue or violet and
transitions between light to dark yellow (1st order
birefringence). Spaces between the grains are infilled with
smaller-sized holocrystalline matrix. Figure 3 shows quartz mineral, which is the major component found in
the breccia matrix composition.
Fig. 4 shows an angular rock fragment, presumably the black
shale xenolith that is visible on both microscopic and
macroscopic level. It is dark grey in colour and has no
pleochroism. Fig. 5 shows another rock fragments, most likely
chert as indicated by its granular texture and light pinkish
colour under XPL. Overall, quartz mineral appear to be the
major constituent of the breccia matrix, which points to the
idea of intrusion in the region. The shale and chert clasts were
most likely originated from the Chert and Rhythmite Member
of Semanggol Formation before the intrusion take place. Figure 4 shows the microscopic fragment of black shale clasts

B. XRD
From the diffraction analysis, the major phase identified
from the sample of breccia matrix is quartz, in which the peak

3
International Geomagnetic Reference Field (http://wdc.kugi.kyoto-
u.ac.jp/igrf/point/index.html)

Figure 5 shows the microscopic fragment of the chert clast

 E. Regional Map
Regional map is generated after extreme low pass filter is
applied, masking the high frequency anomalies and noises
from the map, leaving only the low frequency anomalies that
reflects the deep-seated magnetization of the Earth. Here in
Fig. 7c, there is gradual increment of magnetic intensity in the
East South-East direction. This indicates that the source body,
presumably the basement, gets shallower to the east. This
basement rock may be continuous and is the extension of the S-
type granitoids of Bintang Range and Main Range in the east.

Figure 6 shows the diffraction pattern of breccia matric from the

abandoned quarry. According to the reference database, the major phase
identified is quartz.

C. Magnetic Anomaly Map

A magnetized body would result in anomaly and for each
source body, there would be two sets of contour, the positive
and the negative [9]. Depending on the depth and dimension of
the body, the distance between the negative and positive
extreme would vary. At the equator, a body would have a
negative contour around its center with positive contour or
lobes at the northern and southern edges. At other latitudes, the
positive and negative component of a body would depend
partly on field inclination. Taking that into consideration,
reduction to equator (RTE) filter is applied to the TMI to
facilitate interpretation. RTE would be more appropriate since
the location of Gunung Semanggol is nearer to the equator with (a) (b)
latitude around 4.9, and reduction to pole (RTP) is known to
be unstable at low latitude of less than 20 [10]. At Gunung
Semanggol, the average inclination is -5.73 while the
declination is -0.195, both of which can be considered
relatively small. In Fig. 7a, the anomalies in general are slightly
elongated laterally after RTE. By observing the extreme
negative anomalies (indicated by the blue colour), it can be
seen that the major anomalies are trending in the northwest
direction, while some in the northeast direction.

D. Residual Map
Fig. 7b shows a less erratic anomaly distribution and the
anomalies appear to have a more concentrated contour lines,
forming somewhat circular shape in multiple location around
the region especially in the center and northern part of the map.
Ringing effect is also present around peak negative values as a
direct influence of the filter process, i.e. Gibbs phenomenon.
However, a primary northwest trending of high negative
anomaly values can still be observed, along with minor trend in
northeast direction. By integrating both of the anomaly map, it
can be observed that the circular anomaly in residual map
correlates with the anomaly map in Fig. 7b and the trend lines (c) (d)
are consistent. Based on the semicircular shape of the contours, Figure 7 shows (a) magnetic anomaly, (b) residual, (c) regional and (d)
the intrusion may be present in the form of columnar dykes. location map of Gunung Semanggol. (a) and (b) shows general trend of
the anomalies in the northeast and northwest direction, as indicated by the
yellow line. These high anomaly localities are circled in (d) to show its
general location. Note that the abandoned quarry, where the breccia
formation is found, is situated within those trend of high anomaly region.
 V. CONCLUSION [9] S. Jain, Total magnetic field reduction the pole or equator? A model
study, Canadian Journal of Exploration Geophysics, vol. 24, no. 2, pp.
The thin section and diffraction analysis of the breccia 185 192, 1988
matrix obtained from the abandoned quarry site fairly [10] X. Li, Magnetic reduction-to-the-pole at low latitudes, The Leading
concludes that there are indeed intrusion in this area at some Edge, vol. 27, no. 8, pp. 990-1002, 2008.
point in its geological history, and with large enough scale to [11] W. J. Hinze, R.R.B. Von Frese, A.H. Saad, Gravity and Magnetic
warrant a further study to investigate it subsurface structure. In Exploration: Principles, Practices, and Applications, Cambridge, UK:
magnetic survey, it is important to note that the measured Cambridge University Press, 2013.
magnetic field is a superposition of spectra from both the
source of interest and other extraneous sources including noise,
overlaid together to produce the result that we observed in the
anomaly map [11]. So relying on magnetic data alone almost
always insufficient to represent the features of the target, and
therefore making subsurface delineation a hardly attainable
goal. However, with proper procedure, the data can be useful
for qualitative interpretations. From all the anomaly maps
produced, there are few points that can be highlighted:
High anomaly localities are generally trending in the
northwest as well as northeast direction.
The high magnetic anomalies is presumably caused by the
igneous intrusion in the region, which comes in a series of
dykes along the trend line.
The basement rock, free from near-surface anomalies,
shows increasing magnetisation to the east, thus the deduction
of intrusion originating from the plutons that forms Bintang
Range east of Taiping, and by extension the Main Range
further east.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Special thanks to all the academic staff from the
Geoscience Department, as well as all lab technicians,
including the staff from Centralised Analytical Laboratory
(CAL), who facilitated in conducting the required lab analysis.

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