THE EFFECTS OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT ON THE PETROLEUM GEOLOGY OF WESTERN INDONESIA
The APPEA Journal
12(2) 55 - 63
Published: 1972
Abstract
The traditional concept of western Indonesia as a sinuous island are is probably incorrect. Instead, western Indonesia seems to consist of a series of largely straight segments that are sometimes offset and that may change direction abruptly in specific hinge line areas. The segments, especially in these hinge line areas, are cut by a system of north-northeast trending transverse faults. This fault system (Bantam trend) is noted forremarkable consistency in the direction of strike,
wide distribution,
variety of amount and direction of movement,
occasional volcanism, and
varied activity at different times during the Cenozoic period or before, probably diminishing in a northeasterly direction.
The segmentation and associated transverse fault system of western Indonesia may be caused by the Australian plate and its fracture zones (extensions of "transform" faults?) and north-northeast trending Indian Ocean morphological features, being thrust beneath the Indonesian continental area. The Bantam (transverse) fault trend may have affected the petroleum geology of western Indonesia in at least two ways:
it may have been responsible for the division of the backdeep and perhaps the interdeep into a series of highs and lows, resulting in silled conditions during deposition and therefore, source rock generation;
it probably provided the usual north-northeast trending oil and gas producing anticlines in northern Java and in the Java Sea. As the less explored interdeep basins are closer to the edge of the subduction zone, the Bantam trend faults are likely to be particularly prominent there, a factor that should affect exploration programmes in this region.
https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ71033
© CSIRO 1972
