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SUMMARY
The Lariang and Karama regions of western
Sulawesi, an area of approximately 10,000 km2,
were the subject of a field-based investigation with
the aim of understanding the Cenozoic evolution of
the eastern Makassar Strait.
Western Sulawesi was influenced by rifting in the
Makassar Strait to the west and the collision of
continental, ophiolitic and island arc fragments to
the east. The timing of these events has been widely
debated and it has been suggested that Neogene
collisions in Sulawesi caused inversion in Borneo.
Based on the integration of field, biostratigraphic
and remote sensing data, a stratigraphy has been
developed and mapped for the onshore region,
providing a new and significant insight into the
evolution of the North Makassar Basin. Detailed
sedimentary facies analyses combined with
information from microfossil assemblages allowed
interpretation
of
Cenozoic
environments.
Petrographic analysis identified provenance trends
in the Neogene successions.
The oldest dated Cenozoic sediments are marine
and record a transgression in the Middle Eocene. As
the area subsided, late Eocene carbonates developed
on fault block highs that were eventually covered by
Oligocene and Miocene mudstones. It was not until
the Late Miocene that significant coarse clastics
were again deposited on the shelf. From the Late
Pliocene, deformation and uplift changed the
tectonic setting from a passive margin to a foreland
basin setting.
Field mapping together with the interpretation of
vintage onshore seismic data has enabled a
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INTRODUCTION
Before this work was carried out, no single
geological study had previously focussed on the
entire Lariang and Karama region. The region was
previously mentioned in publically available
geological reviews (Hundling, 1942; Beltz, 1944;
van Bemmelen 1949; Hamilton 1979; Kartaadiputra
et al. 1982), but it was GRDC (Geological Research
and Development Centre, Indonesia) who first
published geological reports with differing
stratigraphies on different parts of the study area
(Hadiwijoyo et al., 1993; Ratman and Atmawinata,
1993;
Sukamto,
1973).
The
stratigraphy
summarized here is a significant revision of these
previous works. It is based on fieldwork carried out
in 1996, 1997 as part of a PhD at the University of
London, and in 2001 as proprietary work for Unocal
(Calvert, 2000; Calvert and Terry, 2001; Calvert
and Hall, 2003). Since the completion of the
onshore work, offshore seismic data has revealed a
series of highly prospective structures which have
not yet been tested (Fraser et al., 2003).
Pliocene shelf sediments and Plio-Pleistocene synorogenic sediments. The synrift Eocene sediments
were deposited in graben and half-graben in both
marine and marginal marine environments. The
post-rift subsidence phase had started by the late
Eocene and carbonate shoals and shelf mudstones
covered this margin of the Makassar Strait. It was
not until the Pliocene that the character of
sedimentation across the whole of Western, Central
and Eastern Sulawesi changed significantly. Uplift
and erosion was followed by the deposition of
coarse clastics derived from an orogenic belt to the
east of the study area. To the west of the orogenic
belt there was syn-orogenic sedimentation,
inversion and folding above Paleogene half-graben,
detachment folding and thrus faulting, and the
development of intra-basinal unconformities and
mini-basins. Some of the folds, which form gentle
hills, have in the past been the main structural
prospects (e.g. Norvick and Pile, 1976;
Chamberlain and Seago, 1995). These hills are the
onshore expression of similar structures that cover a
much larger prospective area offshore (Figure 1).
REFERENCES CITED
Aini, S., Hall, R., Elders, C.F. 2005 Basement
Architecture and Sedimentary Fill of the North
Makassar Basin. Proceedings Indonesian Petroleum
Association, 30th Annual Convention, 483-497.
Bellier, O., Beaudoin, T., Sebrier, M., Villeneuve,
M., Bahar, I., Putranto, I., Pratomo, E., Massault,
M. & Seward, D. 1998. Active faulting in central
Sulawesi (eastern Indonesia). In: Wilson, P. &
Michel, G. W. (eds.), The Geodynamics of S and
SE
Asia
(GEODYSSEA
Project),
GeoForshingsZentrum, Potsdam, Germany. 276312.
Beltz, E. W. 1944. Principal sedimentary basins in
the East Indies. American Association of Petroleum
Geologists Bulletin, 28, 1440-1454.
Bergman, S. C., Coffield, D. Q., Talbot, J. P. &
Garrard, R. J. 1996. Tertiary Tectonic and
Magmatic Evolution of Western Sulawesi and the
Makassar Strait, Indonesia: Evidence for a Miocene
Continent-Continent Collision. In: HALL, R. &
BLUNDELL, D. J. (eds.), Tectonic Evolution of
Southeast Asia. Geological Society of London
Special Publication, 106, 391-430.
Calvert, S. J. 2000. The Cenozoic Geology of the
Lariang and Karama regions, Western Sulawesi,
Indonesia. PhD Thesis, University of London, 500
p. Two Volumes.
Figure 1 - BOTTOM RIGHT - Schematic depositional model for the Toraja Group derived from the onshore fieldwork - note the development of limestone
on the fault block highs (sensu Moss and Chambers, 2000). LEFT Tilted fault blocks have subsequently been interpreted on offshore seismic
data (Aini et al., 2005). TOP RIGHT - Pliocene folds onshore that have deformed the Miocene section (yellow unit) have been imaged offshore
with detachments in the Oligocene and Early Miocene post rift mudstones.