IPA17-91-G

PROCEEDINGS, INDONESIAN PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION

Forty-First Annual Convention & Exhibition, May 2017

SERAM, THE SERAM TROUGH, THE ARU TROUGH, THE TANIMBAR TROUGH AND THE
WEBER DEEP: A NEW LOOK AT MAJOR STRUCTURES IN THE EASTERN BANDA ARC

Robert Hall*
Adi Patria*
Ramadhan Adhitama **
Jonathan M. Pownall ***
Lloyd T. White ****

ABSTRACT indicates active E-W extension of the Aru trough and

Multibeam bathymetry data, combined with 2D
seismic data and studies on land, provide new
insights into the major structures in the northern and
eastern Banda Arc. In the west, north of Buru, is the
deep Buru basin where there is evidence of extension
with probable Neogene oceanic crust. To the east, the
thrust front of the Seram fold and thrust belt (FTB)
can be traced along the Seram trough which turns
from E-W to N-S to pass through the Kai Islands into
the Tanimbar trough. The thrust front is not east of
the Kai Islands as often drawn. Between the Kai and
Aru Islands is the Aru trough bounded by NNE-
SSW-trending normal faults which converge to the
SW and can be traced southwards into the Tanimbar
trough.
An important WNW-ESE-trending, probably
inactive, fault bounds the northern end of the Aru
trough south of the Bird’s Head that we name the
Kumawa fault. It is partly buried below disturbed
sediments that have slumped from the shelf south of
the Lengguru FTB. This is a major tectonic feature.
To the north there is a late Neogene history of
contraction that formed the Misool–Onin–Kumawa
Ridge and Lengguru FTB. To the south, east of the
thrust front, extensional structures dominate. We
propose that the Kumawa fault links to the Kawa
shear zone of Seram which together form a
lithosphere-scale sinistral shear zone active during
the Miocene and Pliocene which exhumed deep crust
and mantle on Seram. The Kumawa fault offsets the
Seram thrust front close to the Kumawa peninsula.
To the east is the E-W-trending Tarera–Aiduna fault
zone that can be traced offshore only a short distance
from the Bird’s Head. This is a very young structure
with little displacement which does not reach the
Seram Trough. However, present-day seismicity
* Royal Holloway University of London
** University of Trisakti
*** University of Australian National
**** University of Wollongong
strike-slip movement on the Tarera–Aiduna fault
zone.
The Seram trough began to form in the Late Pliocene
due to loading by the Seram FTB. The Tanimbar
trough originated in the Late Miocene as an elongate
extensional structure within the Australian
continental margin. Neither troughs are subduction
zones. Almost all active deformation in the Seram
FTB is on Seram, and offshore south of the trough
and north of the Kumawa fault. There is almost no
seismicity at the trough itself, unlike modern
subduction zones. South of the Kumawa fault is a
wide FTB, trending roughly N-S towards the Kai
Islands and Tanimbar, with young mud volcanism
but little seismicity. Immediately west of the FTB is
the Weber deep, the Earth’s deepest forearc basin,
which is a young extensional basin bounded by a
major low angle detachment on its eastern side. It is
the most recent manifestation of eastward Banda
subduction rollback, and may still be active.
INTRODUCTION
Banda Arc (Figure 1) subduction has been known for
many years (e.g. Hamilton, 1974, 1979; Cardwell &
Isacks, 1978), as has the remarkable curve in Benioff
zone contours through almost 180° at the eastern end
of the arc (Figure 2). The change in orientation has
been interpreted in two different ways: a single slab
that was deformed in the mantle (Hamilton, 1979) or
two separate slabs subducted from the north and
south (e.g. Cardwell & Isacks, 1978; McCaffrey,
1989; Das, 2004). This argument has now been
resolved in favour of the single slab model (Spakman
and Hall, 2010; Hall, 2012) and the geometry of the
slab in the mantle is explained by the rollback of the
subduction hinge into a pre-existing U-shaped
embayment of Jurassic oceanic crust, the Banda
embayment, within the Australian continental
margin.
The islands of the Banda arc have been separated into
two parts; an inner volcanic arc and an outer arc in
which the largest islands are Timor in the south and
Seram in the north (Figure 1). Timor is clearly the
expression of Pliocene arc–continent collision and
has received by far the most attention from
researchers in the region. Seram and the islands of
the northern Banda arc remain less accessible and
have been the subject of much less research.
Although Seram has been interpreted as effectively a
mirror image of Timor (Audley-Charles et al., 1979),
the supposed arc that collided with the northern
continental margin of the Banda embayment is not
obvious and the present-day active volcanic arc
terminates at Banda at the eastern end of the arc.
However, the shape of the subducted slab in the
mantle has led to the widespread assumption that the
system of troughs that are broadly parallel to the
Benioff zone contours, and outside the outer arc
islands, are subduction trenches. The troughs are
commonly shown as a continuous feature, but the
position of the supposed subduction zone, notably at
the eastern end of the arc, is commonly drawn in
different positions. Some authors connect the
Tanimbar trough to the Seram trough through the Kai
Islands (e.g. Honthaas et al., 1999; Milsom, 2001;
Charlton, 2002; Hinschberger et al., 2003) whereas
others trace a subduction zone from the Tanimbar
trough via the Aru trough to the Seram trough (e.g.
Hamilton, 1979; O’Sullivan et al., 1985; Silver et al.,
1985; Harris, 2011). At its western end the Seram
trough is often mapped as far as Buru.
Other interpretations have been made. Linthout et al.,
(1991, 1997) advocated an important role for sinistral
strike-slip faulting in the Seram region, a suggestion
later supported by Teas et al. (2009). Audley-Charles
et al. (1979) proposed the Seram trough was an
expression of intra-continental subduction. Audley-
Charles (1986) identified the Timor–Tanimbar
trough as a foreland basin and Pairault et al. (2003)
made a similar suggestion for the Seram trough; the
troughs being interpreted as a flexural response to
thrust-loading in the outer arc islands. Spakman and
Hall (2010) accepted the trough is partly a foredeep
produced by loading, rather than a subduction trench,
but proposed it is also the limit of delamination of
deep lithosphere from the overlying continental
crust. Pownall et al. (2013) linked delamination to
Neogene extension associated with subduction
rollback. Additional complexities in the
interpretation of the arcuate system of troughs
around the Banda arc are the relationship with the
Aru trough, often identified as an important region of
extension (e.g. Schlüter and Fritsch, 1985; Charlton
et al., 1991) and to faults traced west from New
Guinea, such as the Tarera–Aiduna fault system,
which is commonly connected to the Seram trough
(e.g. Hamilton, 1979; Katili, 1986; Charlton et al.,
1991; Harris, 2011) or traced much further west
beyond the trough (e.g. Katili, 1989; Linthout et al.,
1991). Teas et al. (2009) suggested an important left-
lateral strike-slip shear system at the eastern end of
the Seram trough is the offshore extension of the
Tarera–Aiduna fault zone.
The regional tectonic debate raises many questions.
How far west can the Seram trough be traced? How
and where are the Seram, Tanimbar and Aru troughs
connected? Are any of the troughs the trace of
through-going lithospheric faults connecting the
subducted slab to the surface? What are the major
structures in the eastern and northern parts of the
Banda arc and what is their role in the development
of the collision zone? What are the implications for
hydrocarbon exploration? Detailed multibeam
bathymetric maps of the seabed, and shuttle radar
(SRTM) and ASTER imagery of land, display details
of structure offshore and onshore in unprecedented
detail and allow structural and tectonic interpretation
that was previously impossible. We use 2D seismic
and multibeam data acquired in the last 20 years
(Pairault et al., 2003; Teas et al., 2009; Adhitama et
al., 2017; Patria and Hall, 2017), integrated with
recent land studies and new dating (Pownall et al.,
2013, 2014, 2016, 2017; Pownall and Hall, 2014),
plus insights from regional seismicity and P-wave
tomography (Spakman and Hall, 2010; Hall and
Spakman, 2015) to suggest answers to these
questions.
PRESENT TECTONIC SETTING
Figure 2 shows a simplified map of the bathymetry
of the Banda arc which highlights a significant
feature of the troughs: how shallow they are. Most
parts of the troughs are less than 3 km deep and the
central Seram trough and Tanimbar trough are less
than 2 km deep. They are shallower than almost all
subduction trenches. There are three deep areas. The
Aru trough reaches depths of 3–4 km and is an
extensional basin within the Australian continental
margin (Charlton et al., 1991; Adhitama et al., 2017).
At the western end of the Seram trough, north of west
Seram and Buru, the depth of the Buru basin exceeds
5 km; this is a small rifted basin, probably formed at
the time of oceanic spreading in the North Banda Sea
between c. 12 and 7 Ma (Hinschberger et al., 2003),
and likely to contain oceanic crust at its centre (Patria
and Hall, 2017). The Weber deep is a young
extensional basin in a back arc setting (Hinschberger
et al., 2003) interpreted to have formed in the most
recent phase of subduction rollback which may still
be active (Pownall et al., 2016).
GPS observations (Stevens et al., 2002; Bock et al.,
2003) show that stations in the eastern Banda arc
(Ambon, Banda Api, Kai Besar) are moving rapidly,
approximately ENE-wards, towards the Bird’s Head
(Figure 3) and have been used to define a Bird’s
Head block subducting SW-wards beneath the
northern Banda arc at the Seram trough (Bock et al.,
2003). However, some caution is required in
interpretation of the GPS measurements, even if it is
accepted that they record movements of lithospheric
blocks, rather than merely upper crust, as implied by
the inference of subduction. There are few stations
and measurements have been made over only about
20 years. Those from the western Bird’s Head are
consistent with a single block, but those from stations
on Biak and Yapen suggest they are not part of this
block. Furthermore, the supposed subduction trace
drawn by Bock et al. (2003) is continued west, well
beyond the Seram trough into the Buru basin, and
located in the wrong place in the Kai Islands–Aru
trough region where the station on Kai Besar should
be east, not west, of this trace (Adhitama et al., 2017;
Patria and Hall, 2017). Finally, the convergence of
Ambon and Banda Api with a Bird’s Head block
does not require subduction at the Seram trough, but
simply implies contraction in the region between
Ambon–Banda and the southern Bird’s Head, an area
which includes the whole of Seram.
Earthquakes provide information on where
deformation is occurring at the present-day. Figure
4A plots earthquake hypocentres from Engdahl et al.
(1998). There is almost no seismicity near the trough,
quite unlike a subduction zone, and almost all the
earthquakes between Ambon–Banda and the Bird’s
Head are beneath or close to Seram Island. The
majority are very shallow (< 50 km) and with one
exception all are < 100 km deep. There is also a
significant diminution of seismicity between the
Weber deep and the Kai Islands. The CMT catalog
of global seismic moment tensors (Ekström et al.,
2012) shows the types of faults in the region
subdivided into normal (Figure 4B), strike-slip
(Figure 4C) and thrusts (Figure 4D). The Aru trough
is the site of active E-W extension with strike-slip
faults (predominantly sinistral E-W trends) at its
northern end. There are a few strike-slip solutions
between the Weber deep and the Kai Islands. In
contrast, Seram is dominated by thrust faulting, with
broadly E-W fault trends in the west changing to
broadly N-S trends in the east, parallel to the trace of
the Seram trough, and there are relatively common
strike-slip fault solutions (predominantly sinistral E-
W trends). Normal fault solutions are uncommon.
DATA AND METHODOLOGY
A multibeam bathymetry dataset with a cell size of
25 m was provided by TGS. Acquisition information
is given in Teas et al. (2009). This was merged with
another multibeam bathymetry dataset with a cell
size of 15 m provided by GeoData Ventures Pte.
(Figure 5) and processed with ER Mapper and Global
Mapper to remove small voids. The multibeam data
were used with 2D time-migrated seismic datasets
provided by TGS for two projects on the Seram
trough (Patria and Hall, 2017) and the Aru trough
(Adhitama et al., 2017). Figures in these two
accompanying papers complement the descriptions
and illustrations in this paper. The interpretations in
this paper are based on the results of those projects,
observations and interpretations from Seram
(Pownall, 2015; Pownall et al., 2013, 2014, 2016,
2017), other 2D seismic data, and influenced by the
published GPS measurements and regional
seismicity discussed above. The high resolution
multibeam data help to distinguish between tectonic
interpretations, which was not previously possible
using lower resolution data such as global satellite
gravity-derived bathymetry or 2D seismic grids.
Figure 6 summarises the major structures interpreted
in the northern and eastern Banda arc which are
discussed below.
THE SERAM TROUGH
Patria and Hall (2017) conclude that the Seram
trough is not a subduction trench but a linear
bathymetric feature which marks the deformation
front of a fold and thrust belt resulting from young
oblique convergence between the Outer Banda arc
and the Bird’s Head. The trough terminates as a well-
defined feature in the west at about 128°30’E where
there is a complex deeper zone on the sea floor before
passing west into the Buru basin. The Buru basin is
much deeper than the Seram trough, reaching 5300
m, and is not a continuation of the trough as often
interpreted (e.g. Hamilton, 1979; Silver et al., 1985;
Honthaas et al., 1999; Pairault et al., 2003). It has a
relatively simple structure with E-W-trending
normal faults downthrown towards the basin axis
where there is likely to be oceanic crust. We suggest
the basin formed by rifting contemporaneous with
oceanic spreading in the North Banda Sea between
12 and 7 Ma (Hinschberger et al., 2003).
The Seram trough differs from subduction trenches
in its shallow depth, the absence of seismicity at, and
outboard (north) of, the trough, and the character of
seismicity inboard (south) of the trough. There is a
fold and thrust belt (FTB) between Seram and the
trough. We deliberately avoid the term accretionary
complex for the FTB because of its connotations of
subduction; similar structures in subduction and non-
subduction settings are simply the result of
contraction and in our view, at least in part, the result
of gravity-driven movements. The FTB south of the
trough is narrow in the west (40 km from north to
south) and 2D seismic lines suggest thrusting close
to the trough is balanced by extension close to the
Seram coast (Patria and Hall, 2017, their Figure 5D)
suggesting gravity-driven deformation. The FTB
widens to the east where it also changes direction
from E-W-trending to N-S-trending, which we
suggest results from the former shape of the Banda
embayment margin. In the east the FTB is thrust onto
the folded Misool–Onin–Kumawa ridge (MOKR)
for which Fraser et al. (1993) used the acronyms
KOMA and MOKA. This is a large open
anticlinorium which has a broadly E-W axial trend
with a number of dog-leg bends mapped offshore
using 2D seismic lines by tracing erosional
culminations from south of Misool towards the Onin
peninsula (Pairault et al., 2003). From there it can be
mapped on land following the axial trace of folds
visible on SRTM images to the Kumawa peninsula
(Figure 6). The ridge formed in the Late Miocene–
Early Pliocene and emergence due to folding
produced the Early Pliocene unconformity identified
by Pairault et al. (2003); thrusting of the FTB post-
dates the unconformity. Between 129°30’E and
130°30’E (Figure 7) an extensive carbonate platform
overlies the Early Pliocene unconformity and must
have formed close to sea level. After formation of the
platform the carbonates were tilted and subsided to
depths of between 450 m and 1400 m, and now dip
towards the trough which is at about 2000 m depth
(Figure 7). This indicates the present depth of the
trough has been acquired since the Early Pliocene
which we interpret to be due to loading by the Seram
FTB. Carbonates capping the Kai Arch are now at
similar depths above the probable Early Pliocene
unconformity (Adhitama et al., 2017) immediately
east of the Seram FTB thrust front.
ARU AND TANIMBAR TROUGHS
The multibeam data resolve the issue of the position
of the Seram trough and its link to the Tanimbar
trough. The thrust front of the Seram FTB can be
clearly traced from north to south on the west side of
the Kai Arch (Adhitama et al., 2017; Patria and Hall,
2017) and between the islands of Kai Besar and Kai
Kecil (Figure 8) as previously suggested by several
authors (Charlton et al., 1991; Milsom et al., 1996).
East of the Kai Arch there are NNE-SSW-trending
normal faults which border the Aru trough.
Significant extension began in the Late Miocene and
major subsidence occurred between the Pliocene and
present day.
The NNE-SSW normal faults can be traced
southwards where they converge. The eastern faults
form the east boundary of the Tanimbar trough and
the western boundary fault can be traced parallel to
the east coast of Kai Besar (Figure 8). At its northern
end the Kai Arch is bounded by the narrow N-S
Seram trough on its western side, where the Seram
FTB thrusts eastwards, and a steep east-dipping
normal fault on its eastern side (Adhitama et al.,
2017; Patria and Hall, 2017). Three seismic lines
(Figures. 8 and 9) illustrate the link between
thrusting and extension. Line B (Figure 9B) shows
the Seram FTB front is a west-dipping thrust above
an east-dipping normal fault on the west side of the
Kai Arch and the multibeam map confirms this can
be traced southwards from the Seram trough. Further
south the NNE-SSW east-dipping normal fault is
buried beneath a large mass transport complex
(MTC) about 100 km in length and 40 km wide
(Figure 8) which has moved downslope into deeper
water towards the NE. It is notable that the northern
margin (Figure 9A) and the eastern margin (Figure
9C) of the MTC are thrust zones traceable from the
front of the MTC to depths of 2 to 3 seconds TWT
below it. In the shallower areas of the Seram FTB
north and south of the Kai Islands there is abundant
evidence for mud volcanism on the sea bed (Figure
8) as also reported on land (Charlton et al., 1991).
Interpretations of 2D seismic lines alone would
commonly conclude that the thrust front on the west
side of the Tanimbar trough is a subduction zone but
the multibeam imagery shows that the Seram FTB
has collapsed downslope as an MTC, moving
towards the NE, into the pre-existing deep water
Tanimbar–Aru trough. Thus, the Tanimbar trough is
not a subduction zone but a southwards-narrowing
extensional trough formed in the Late Miocene into
which an overpressured MTC has moved. The thrust
front at the northern end of the MTC (Figure 9A) is
almost identical to other parts of the thrust front
along the Seram and Tanimbar troughs (Figures 9B
and 9C) despite being formed at the MTC front
orthogonal to the Banda arc–Australian margin
convergence direction.
At the northern end of the Kai Arch is an almost flat
carbonate platform at approximately 1 km depth
(Adhitama et al., 2017). This rests directly on the
New Guinea Limestone above an erosional
unconformity interpreted as Early Pliocene in age
(Pairault et al., 2003). We suggest the carbonates are
of similar Late Pliocene to Pleistocene age to the
carbonate platform tilted into the Seram trough
further west (Patria and Hall, 2017) and subsidence
of the Kai Arch is attributed to loading by east-
directed thrusting of the Seram FTB. Young rapid
subsidence would have caused NE-directed
movement of the MTC and SW-directed movement
of other MTCs from the Lengguru shelf into the Aru
trough in the NE part of the Aru trough.
SERAM–KUMAWA SHEAR ZONE
A NW-SE to WNW-ESE-trending fault system
forms the northern border of the Kumawa basin
(Adhitama et al., 2017) and a fault zone with similar
orientation offsets the Seram trough by about 80 km
at the north end of the Kai Arch (Figure 6). We name
these the Kumawa fault. The fault zone appears to be
inactive and is covered in part by the MTCs from the
Lengguru shelf and by the carbonate platform at the
north end of the Kai Arch. There is a major change
across the Kumawa fault. To the north there was
significant contractional deformation during the Late
Miocene to Early Pliocene resulting in formation of
the Misool–Onin–Kumawa Ridge and the Lengguru
fold belt. To the south there is no sign of similar
significant contraction and all major structures, such
as the Aru trough, are extensional.
We suggest this is a structure of major importance
and we interpret it to link to the major strike-slip fault
zone crossing Seram (Figure 10), forming part of the
Kawa shear zone and including the Kobipoto
Mountains pop-up (Pownall et al., 2013, 2014). On
Seram this is a deep lithosphere-scale structure. In
the Kobipoto Mountains ultrahigh-temperature
(UHT) granulites record a major thermal event at 16
Ma (Pownall et al., 2014; Pownall, 2015).
Immediately west of the shear zone Kobipoto
Complex rocks were exhumed beneath extensional
detachment faults on the Kaibobo Peninsula of
western Seram at 5.7 Ma and there was deformation
within the Kawa shear zone at 4.5 Ma (Pownall et al.,
2017). Extension has exhumed mantle peridotites,
cordierite granites formed by melting at peridotite
contacts, and deep crustal metamorphic rocks. We
name the entire fault system from offshore west
Seram to the eastern Aru trough the Seram–Kumawa
shear zone. The shear zone, igneous and
metamorphic rocks record multiple phases of
exhumation attributed to extension associated with
subduction rollback into the Banda embayment
(Spakman and Hall, 2010). Ages recorded on Seram
and interpreted from the Aru trough (Adhitama et al.,
2017) indicate that the shear zone was active in the
Late Miocene and Pliocene.
The reason why this fault zone was so important in
the Neogene is unclear. However, we note the
orientation of the shear zone and the faults bounding
the Aru and Tanimbar troughs to be parallel to the
inferred shape of the Banda embayment. This
suggests that faults were active in the Jurassic
(Figure 11) and were associated with rifting of the
Banda embayment blocks, and these have been
reactivated during Neogene subduction rollback.
TARERA–AIDUNA FAULT ZONE
The Tarera–Aiduna strike-slip fault zone is usually
represented as a single fault trending E-W south of
the Bird’s Head from the western end of the Central
Ranges. Hamilton (1979) and Katili (1986) showed
the fault zone has only minor expression on land,
confirmed by SRTM and ASTER images, which is
much less than expected considering its commonly
interpreted importance (e.g. Hinschberger et al.
(2005) show the fault as active for at least 9 Ma with
several hundred kilometers of sinistral displacement
in their Banda reconstruction). Teas et al. (2009)
mapped the southern strand of the fault zone offshore
using multibeam data on the Lengguru shelf and
showed its sinistral character. However, they
appeared to consider it was connected to the WNW-
trending segment offset of the Seram trough (Figure
6) which we interpret as part of the Kumawa fault.
We suggest the Kumawa and Tarera–Aiduna are
different fault zones and were active at different
times.
The Kumawa fault was active in the Late Miocene
and Pliocene and as explained above links to the
Kawa shear zone of Seram. Mapping by Hamilton
(1979) and Katili (1986) suggests the Tarera–Aiduna
fault zone breaks into multiple splays typical of the
end of fault zones. The multibeam bathymetry which
includes a southern strand of the fault zone supports
the interpreted sinistral strike-slip displacement and
suggests a locally transtensional and transpressional
character but with little offset. We suggest this fault
is very young and dies out east of the Seram trough,
although judging from seismicity (Figure 4C), it may
now be taking over from the Kumawa fault as an
important fault bounding a Bird’s Head block.
THE WEBER DEEP
The Weber deep is a spectacular 7 km deep feature
within the forearc of the eastern Banda arc and is the
deepest point of the global ocean that is not a trench.
Hinschberger et al. (2003) suggested it formed
between 3.5 and 1 Ma. Pownall et al. (2016)
proposed that it was even younger and was formed
by forearc extension driven by eastward subduction
rollback since 2 Ma based on reconstructions by
Spakman and Hall (2010). Lithospheric extension in
the upper plate was accommodated by a major low-
angle normal fault system termed the Banda
detachment. The multibeam bathymetry data show
that the Banda detachment is exposed underwater
over much of its 120 km down-dip and 450 km lateral
extent and that grooves on the submarine fault
surface indicate young extension in an NW-SE
direction (Pownall et al., 2016). The detachment is
exposed in east Seram and on small islands SE of
Seram (Figure 6).
There is no seismicity to indicate that the detachment
is active but this could reflect a long recurrence
interval on a major fault, unlikely to be recorded by
a global earthquake database that documents
earthquakes only from the late 1960s and in a remote
region with a small population and little additional
historical record. Low angle normal faults are
apparently rarely seismically active (Axen, 2007) but
their observed low frequency could indicate that
earthquakes on them are rare but large (Wernicke,
1995). Liu and Harris (2014) suggested a tsunami in
the Banda Islands in 1629 may have been triggered
by a seismic event in the Seram trough. This
conclusion was based partly on the assumption that
the Seram trough marks a subduction zone associated
with a major lithospheric fault. As discussed above,
both these assumptions are likely to be wrong and the
present-day trough itself is marked by almost no
seismicity. However, the Banda detachment is an
obvious candidate for a major earthquake and is also
closer to the Banda Islands than the Seram trough.
Large slumps observed at the foot of the eastern wall
of the Weber deep, potentially triggered by an
earthquake, would be capable of generating a
tsunami, like submarine slumps suggested to be
implicated in the 1998 New Guinea tsunami
(Synolakis et al., 2002; Okal and Synolakis, 2003) or
the 2006 Java tsunami (Fritz et al., 2007).
CONCLUSIONS
Part of the debate over location and significance of
bathymetric features has been hampered by the
resolution of available data – it is impossible to
resolve them using global satellite gravity-derived
bathymetry or with widely spaced 2D seismic grids.
The multibeam and 2D seismic data together provide
the basis for a much-improved interpretation of the
structures and tectonics of the northern and eastern
Banda arc. These show that there a number of
different bathymetric features (Figure 6).
The Buru basin is a narrow rift basin which probably
contains oceanic crust at its centre and formed
between 12 and 7 Ma. It is situated at the western end
of the Seram trough. The boundary between the Buru
basin and the Seram trough is probably a sinistral
WNW-ESE fault zone that continues the Seram–
Kumawa shear zone offshore but has recently been
intersected by strands of the developing Sorong fault
zone producing major complexity on the sea bed.
This area needs more study and seismic data.
The Seram trough is a much younger aseismic
flexural feature formed in response to loading by the
Seram FTB. It can be traced eastwards as a narrow
linear but relatively shallow feature and turns from a
broadly E-W trend to a N-S trend. It then meets the
Kumawa fault where it is offset eastwards before
turning N-S again and following the western side of
the Kai Arch. It is significant that the Seram trough
is not parallel to the more complex trace of the older
MOKR (Figure 6) as observed by Pairault et al.
(2003). The change in shape of the Seram trough
probably mimics faults that formed the Banda
embayment margin in the Jurassic.
The Seram FTB is a wide zone between southern
Seram and the Seram trough in which there is both
folding and thrusting and strike-slip faulting. These
appear to be partly the result of partitioning of the
convergence between the Bird’s Head and Ambon–
Banda into contraction and lateral displacement, and
are partly influenced from basement structures. The
FTB widens considerably where the trough turns to
a more N-S direction. However, our observations on
land in small islands SE of Seram suggest more
complexity which is not yet understood. Outcrops of
coarse breccio-conglomerates and coarse sandstones
appear to be young alluvial fan deposits, implying a
locally significant hinterland of metamorphic rocks
and possibly peridotites in the offshore FTB close to
the trace of the Kumawa fault.
On the eastern side of the Kai Arch is the Aru trough
which is an extensional depression in which major
extension began in the Late Miocene. The amount
and rate of subsidence and extension increased with
time. It is probable that initial trough extension was
due to pull forces of the subducting Banda slab to the
west. These would have increased as the subduction
hinge approached the eastern embayment margin as
the slab rolled back. In the final stages of rollback the
developing Seram FTB loaded the margin causing
subsidence that caused subsidence of Pleistocene
carbonate platform on the Kai Arch.
The Tanimbar trough originated as a SSW-narrowing
extensional zone linked to the Aru trough. This area
also would have been loaded by the developing
Seram FTB which was thrust eastwards onto the
normal faulted western margin of the trough.
However, in this area the FTB collapsed into the
trough and flowed NE-wards along the trough axis as
one or more mass transport complexes. Recent
thrusting at the MTC margins is the result of lateral
spreading of an over-pressured sequence into the
trough. MTCs were also transported into the Aru
trough from the Lengguru shelf in the NE related to
young and rapid subsidence of the trough. The MTCs
are 2–3 seconds TWT thick and their boundaries
resemble thrust fronts produced in other tectonic
settings.
The Weber deep is a major young extensional feature
with a possibly active detachment which has a long
recurrence interval between displacements. MTCs
down the eastern flank of the basin are also a
potential mechanism to have generated tsunami, if
transport was sudden and rapid.
Despite some resemblances, none of the troughs are
subduction zones. Many of the contractional features
are very young (Quaternary) and gravity-driven.
There is no support for the many models which
suggest the troughs developed during subduction
from the Late Miocene (e.g. O’Sullivan et al. 1985;
Hill, 2005; Bailly et al., 2009; Sapin et al., 2009).
They represent different types of response to
subduction rollback into the Banda embayment.
The Seram–Kumawa shear zone is a newly
recognised major structure within the Australian
continental margin of Banda embayment. This is a
structure that has a long Neogene history. It was
more important and longer-lived than the Seram
trough, and is clearly a lithosphere-scale structure. It
too was active during subduction rollback and major
extension. Figure 11 shows a cartoon summary of the
major structures during their development in the
Early Pliocene. More work is required on the fault
zones. They are not single faults. This study suggests
that the location of strike-slip faulting has shifted
within wide zones, perhaps 40–50 km wide, at
different times. Their location may be inherited from
Mesozoic faults active during formation of the Banda
embayment.
The implications for hydrocarbon exploration can be
assessed in a crude way from Figure 11. All the areas
shaded in pink are underlain by continental crust
which formed part of Australia in the Early Miocene.
Areas shown in light pink were highly stretched by
the Early Pliocene and they were further extended
since then, as were the areas south of the Seram–
Kumawa shear zone as far as Tanimbar. These areas
of highly extended crust, parts of which are now part
of the overthrust collision zone from the Kai Islands
to Timor, are unlikely to be of exploration interest.
On the other hand, areas often labelled accretionary,
such as those close to and on the north side of the
Seram–Kumawa shear zone should be underlain by
Australian continental crust in fold and thrust belts
but are not melanges or exotic material.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank TGS and GeoData Ventures Pte Ltd. for
providing datasets for our work. We thank the SE
Asia Research Group and its members at Royal
Holloway, supported over many years by a changing
consortium of oil companies, for discussion and
assistance. AP was supported by an Indonesia
Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) scholarship
during his MSc at Royal Holloway, RA was
supported by the SEARG for his MSc at Royal
Holloway, and JMP was supported by ARC
fellowship DE160100128. We are especially grateful
to John Decker, Phil Teas, Dan Orange and
colleagues, formerly of Niko Indonesia, for their
support and discussion.
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Figure 1 - Tectonic elements of eastern Indonesia (modified from Hall, 2012). Seram is one of the islands of
the Outer Banda Arc. The Seram Trough is situated between Seram and Misool. Red box outlines
area shown in Figure 4 to 6. Faults are marked by solid black lines; subduction zones are indicated
by toothed black lines; dashed black lines mark the troughs around the Banda Arc.
Figure 2 - Simplified bathymetry of the Banda arc showing the very shallow depth of the troughs which curve
through almost 180° at the eastern end of the arc. Dashed black lines are Benioff zone contours in
km.

Figure 3 - Estimated surface velocities (red arrows) with error ellipses based on GPS measurements at the
sites marked showing motions relative to the Bird’s Head block outlined in green dashed line
(modified from Bock et al., 2003).
Figure 4 - Earthquakes and focal mechanisms for the Banda region. A. Well constrained hypocentres from
Engdahl et al. (1998). B, C, D. Earthquake types plotted for events in the CMT catalog of global
seismic moment tensors (Ekström et al., 2012). The blue line on each map is the trace of the Seram
trough.
Figure 5 - Merged multibeam bathymetry for the Banda region.
Figure 6 - Map of simplified major structures identified in the Banda region discussed in the text. Those of
different ages are coloured differently, but it should be noted that many of these reactivate older
structures.

Figure 7 - Area of former carbonate platform on southern Misool shelf immediately north of the Seram
trough. The Seram trough in the centre of the map is approximately 2000 m deep. The carbonate
platform is tilted southwards from a depth of approximately 450 m in the north to 1400 m at its
southern edge.
Figure 8 - Detail of sea floor bathymetry showing the southern part of the Seram FTB, the Kai Arch, Aru
trough and Tanimbar trough. Lines marked A, B and C are locations of 2D seismic lines shown in
Figure 9. Green lines mark form lines on MTC that has moved NE-wards into the Tanimbar trough
and outline mud volcanism features in shallower areas. Dashed black line is inferred position of
normal fault that formed the western boundary of the Tanimbar trough before the MTC covered it.
Figure 9 - 2D seismic lines located on Figure 8. A. Northern front of MTC which is approximately 2–3
seconds TWT thick. B. Western edge of Tanimbar trough showing the normal fault downthrown
to the east that forms the eastern boundary of the Kai Arch and western edge of the Aru trough.
The thrust front at the Seram trough further north is thrust eastwards over the normal fault. The
lower area on the east side of the section is the MTC. C. the eastern boundary of the MTC in the
Tanimbar trough thrust over the tilted Australian margin.
Figure 10 - The Kawa shear zone on Seram Island modified from Pownall et al. (2013). A. Major faults
mapped on the island. B. Detail showing slices of mantle, igneous and metamorphic rocks
exhumed in the Kobipoto pop-up, and the metamorphic rocks exhumed in the Kaibobo peninsula
of west Seram between 6 and 4 Ma.
Figure 11 - Reconstruction of the northern and eastern Banda arc in the Early Pliocene, modified from Hall
(2002, 2012), showing the inferred location of the Seram–Kumawa shear zone. The coastlines
give an indication of where various parts of the region were but this should be considered very
approximate because of major extension of the former Sula Spur. This was especially important
in the Banda ridges and the embayment margin forming west and south Seram, and areas close to
the subduction zone labelled as highly extended continental crust.