Shell Colloquium Series

Spring 2012
February 16, 3:30 pm, Room A235, Sarkeys Energy Center

Andrew Cullen
Chesapeake Energy

The Usun Apau Volcanic Plateau: A Window to Borneos Interior

In 2007 a small expedition aided by local Penan tribesmen trekked to the Silio Falls area of the Usun Apau Plateau, a remote region in Borneos interior near the border of Sarawak and Kalimantan. The plateau is a modestly dissected volcanic tableland known for spectacular waterfalls along the plateaus rim. The expeditions primary goal was to assist in the development of sustainable tourism for the Penan by testing a shorter route for the ascent of Bukit Selidang (1252m volcanic cone). The most recent geological survey of the plateau (1962) reported dacite and basalt are present, but little else was known. The expeditions scientific component was to collect samples suitable for age dating and modern petrological analysis. Borneos tectonic history is complex; most reconstruction show long-term (50 to 15 Ma) S to SE directed subduction beneath the island. Although outcrops of Cenozoic igneous rocks on Borneo are widely scattered, they have a relatively limited in areal extent and display a spatial distribution in age that bears little resemblance to what one would predict from proposed tectonic models. To the extent they sample the lithosphere beneath the island; the igneous rocks represent windows to the islands past with respect to identifying accreted crustal blocks and assessing the degree to which the mantle and crust have been modified by earlier events. Whilst key Pb and Nd isotopic data are not yet available, results to date indicate the following: Dacite lava flows and welded tuffs erupted at ~ 4.0 Ma (Ar-Ar / mineral separates); the basalts are younger, ~2.5 Ma. These young ages, which are consistent with the preservation of constructional volcanic features despite the high-rainfall tropical setting, demonstrate an intra-plate setting with no direct link to any present-day or recent subduction zone. The dacites have adakite characteristics and are likely the product of limited fractional melting of garnet-bearing mantle, possibly modified during a much older episode of subduction. Light-Ion-Lithophile-Element and High-Field-StrengthElement data indicate the basalts represent a higher degree of melting of the same source. An Oceanic-Island-Basalt (OIB) Sr87/86 signature (0.7040 to .07061) is observed over a broad area, including the UP, in igneous rocks ranging in age from 45 to 2 Ma. This suggests a shared (?) enriched-mantle source region beneath much of Borneo. The UP lies along the Baram-Tinjar Line, an old suture ca. 90 Ma. Geochemically similar Pliocene basalts at Linau-Balui lie well off the Baram-Tinjar Line. Thus, the suture does not appear to have played a direct role in magma genesis, but may have localized emplacement. The lithosphere shear wave velocity field beneath Borneo suggests a large positive thermal anomaly is present; there is no evidence for a subducted slab. Thus, Borneo Late Cenozoic uplift and magmatic activity appear better explained by a deep seated plume rather than by slab detachment as current models suggest.

ConocoPhillips School of Geology & Geophysics

The University of Oklahoma 100 East Boyd St., Ste 710, Norman, Oklahoma 73019 Phone: (405) 325-3253; Fax: (405) 325-3140