Asian and south-western Pacific continental terranes derived from Gondwana, and their biogeographic significance

Abstract

The recent recognition of numerous small geological terranes in the Indo-Pacific region has revolutionised our understanding of geological and biogeographic processes. Most of these terranes rifted from Gondwana. The Shan-Thai terrane rifted from Australia in the Permian and collided with Indo-China in the Triassic. Parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan may have rifted from Australia in the Cretaceous and carried an angiosperm flora north. Other terranes, now dispersed in South-East Asia and in the Pacific were, at various times in the Cenozoic, part of the Australian continent. Faunal and floral mobilism to Fiji via the Solomons and Vanuatu was probably not difficult up to the late Miocene.