Eastern Indonesia is one of the least well-understood geological domains of our planet, and yet the region provides a truly remarkable natural experiment for unraveling some of the major puzzles of plate tectonics. The recent collision of the Australian continent with the active volcanic arc in the Banda region effectively captures the initiation of continental mountain building and the cessation of island arc volcanism, offering a rare glimpse into a set of processes that have shaped Earth's evolution over geologic time. Since oceanic subduction and subsequent continental collision have occurred in different stages along the Banda arc, we plan to use the region to study and assess the spatio-temporal evolution of this transition. This work will help fill fundamental gaps in general understanding of collisional tectonics and formulate answers to outstanding questions about the interrelationships between the history of convergence and the present-day crustal, lithospheric and mantle structure, and the way this relates to topography. This study of the Banda arc holds promise for clarifying the relationships between surface uplift, crustal deformation and recycling, lithospheric structure, subduction, and mantle convection.
We have assembled an international multidisciplinary research team to constrain a sophisticated dynamical model of regional collision and subduction using passive seismology, topographic analysis, targeted geochronology, and a collaboratively led geodetic campaign. The research group includes scientists from Indonesia, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the U.S., and an important outcome will be to strengthen and catalyze future scientific collaboration between these countries. The award is co-funded by the NSF Geophysics and Tectonics Programs, and the Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE). All results, data, and newly developed methods will be shared freely online, benefiting future similar imaging or tectonic modeling efforts.
