The Sedimentary System and Evolution of the Early Tertiary in the Sunda Basin, Indonesia

1.Introduction The Sunda basin covers about7,000km2.Its maximum thickness at the depocenter is around16,000feet(5,000m).It has a north-south direction strike(Fig.1).The basement rock is believed to be Cretaceous granodiorite,metabasalt,mica schist and limestone(Tonkin and Himawan,1999).The basin began to take the shape at the Paleocene-early Oligocene,due to the collision of the Indian plate with the Eurasian plate(Hall,1997;Howells,1997).This collision produced the major NW-SE stress s…

The Sedimentary System and Evolution of the Early Tertiary in the Sunda Basin, Indonesia

The Sunda basin is located at the north of the Sunda Strait situated between Sumatra and Java islands, Indonesia. It is an early Tertiary typical half-graben basin, in which developed a series of terrigenous clastic sedimentation. Previous work suggested that the early Tertiary sediments were alluvial, fluvial, lacustrine and swamp deposits, of which the Banuwati formation was alluvial and lacustrine deposits, the Zelda member fluvial deposits, and Gita member fluvial and swamp deposits. In this paper, based on the integrated research on core lithology (including lithology succession and structure), well log shape, and seismic reflection characteristics, a more detailed sedimentation system was set up as follows: 1) In addition to the alluvial, lacustrine, fluvial and the swamp deposits presented in previous work, subaqeous fan, shore-shallow lacustrine, deep lacustrine and turbidite fan, fan delta and delta deposits also developed in this basin. 2) Alluvial fan, subaqeous fan and fan delta deposits occurred on the steep slope adjacent to the synrift boundary fault; while the deltaic depositional system usually distributed on the gentle slope of the basins. 3) The Zelda member that was interpreted as a fluvial deposit in previous work is now interpreted as a subaqueous fan, fan delta, delta and lacustrine deposit system. 4) From the point of view of sedimentology, the evolution of basin could be divided into four stages: the initial subsidence (matching the Banuwati formation), the rapid subsidence (matching the low Zelda member of Talang Akar formation), the steady subsidence or fluctuation (matching the middle Zelda member of Talang Akar formation), and the uplifting (matching the upper Zelda member and the Gita member of Talang Akar formation). At the initial subsidence stage, the alluvial fan, flood plain, braided stream deposits developed, and then subaqeous fan sedimentation; at the rapid subsidence stage, shore-shallow lacustrine and deep lacustrine deposits and turbidite fans occurred; at the steady subsidence stage, thick fan deltas and delta sandstones developed; and at the uplifting stage, came fluvial (including meandering river and the anastomosed stream) and swamp sediments. Sediment supply was mainly from the northwest, secondly from the east. From the beginning to the end of the terrigenous basin evolution, the area of sedimentation was gradually enlarged. The palaeo-topography became increasingly flat.