Premium
Inelastic yielding and forebulge shape across a modern foreland basin: North West Shelf of Australia, Timor Sea
Author(s) -
Lorenzo Juan M.,
O'Brien Geoffrey W.,
Stewart Jonathan,
Tandon Kush
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/98gl01012
Subject(s) - geology , foreland basin , trough (economics) , continental shelf , lithosphere , subduction , basement , paleontology , continental crust , geomorphology , tectonics , oceanography , civil engineering , engineering , economics , macroeconomics
The Timor Trough is a modern ‘underfilled’ foreland basin created by partial subduction of the outer north west continental shelf of Australia beneath Timor Island in the Outer Banda Arc of eastern Indonesia during the Cenozoic. A change of the effective elastic thickness (EET) of the continental foreland lithosphere from ∼80±20 km to ∼25 km over a distance of ∼300 km explains (1) the high curvature (∼10 −7 m −1 ) on the outer Trough wall, (2) the low shelf forebulge (∼200 m) as measured along a reference base Pliocene unconformity, and (3) observed gravity. An inelastically yielding quartzite‐quartz‐diorite‐dunite continental rheology can explain the EET gradient. New, shallow crustal (<8 km), seismic reflection images indicate that Jurassic basement normal faults are reactivated during bending of the foreland.