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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

Southeast Asia Petroleum Exploration Society (SEAPEX)

Abstract


Offshore South East Asia Conference, 1978
Pages 66-79

Fragmentation of the China Plate and the Development of Marginal Seas of S. E. Asia

John McManus, R. B. Tate

Abstract

The development of S.E. Asia in relation to three phases of ocean floor spreading in the Indian Ocean is examined. Fractures parallel to the north-westward, northward, and north-eastward trends of motion are identified, and the migration of the China plate and micro-continental fragments outlined. It is suggested that continental rafts collided with and became wedged against the Philippine zone of plate convergence. Underflowing simatic crust emerged beyond large wedged rafts and flowed towards the subduction, creating the marginal Sulu and Celebes Sea Basins, with high heat flows, sediment prisms thickening northwards, and chert-spilite assemblages developing along the emergent zones, with associated melange. The effect of continued motion and collision of other micro-continental fragments is shown to be capable of reproducing the present distribution of continent and island arc systems of Asia, with Taiwan and Japan linked into the systems as late movers, after early separation of China from Borneo.


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