The Tectonic Event of the Cenozoic in the Tasman Area, Western Pacific, and Its Role in Eocene Global Change

Abstract:

The geometry and age progression of Emperor and Hawaii seamounts provide compelling evidence for a major change in Pacific plate motion over a short period of geological time at c. 50 Ma. This time approximately coincides with significant changes in plate boundary configuration and rate in the Indian Ocean, Antarctica, and with the onset of subduction zones in the western Pacific from Japan to New Zealand.

This new subduction system that initiated during Eocene time can be divided into two sectors:

The northern sector formed at the eastern boundary of the Philippine Sea plate and evolved into the Izu-Bonin-Mariana system. It has and is being extensively studied (2014 IODP expedition 351) to determine the magmatic products, but is limited in the record that is preserved because it is entirely intra-oceanic in character.

The southern sector, the Tasman Area sector, borders continental fragments of Gondwana from Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia and New Zealand. This subduction zone evolved into the Tonga-Kemadec system. Because most of the southwest Pacific remained in marine conditions throughout Paleogene time and because rapid seawards roll-back of the subduction is inferred to have happened, it presents extensive well-preserved stratigraphic records to study the Eocene-Oligocene plate boundary evolution.

The recent compilation of c. 100.000 km of 2D seismic data in the Tasman Frontier database has allowed us to describe, in the overriding plate of the proto subduction, stratigraphic evidence for large Cenozoic vertical movements (2-4 km) over a lateral extension of 2000 km (from New Caledonia to New Zealand), long-wavelength (~500 km) warping and large amounts of reverse faulting and folding near the proto-trench. These recent observations from the Lord Howe Rise, New Caledonia Trough and South Norfolk Ridge system reveal clear evidence for convergent deformation (uplift and erosion) and subsequent subsidence recorded in Eocene and Oligocene stratal relationships. Together, these evidences form a tectonic event, which is manifest as a regional Eocene-Oligocene unconformity, and which is named the "Tectonic Event of the Cenozoic in the Tasman Area" (TECTA).

Studying the absolute timing of TECTA and the relative timing of its sub-events will allow to better understand its role and relation to Eocene global change.