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Mode of emplacement of the Papuan Ultramafic Belt: a discussion

Created 17/10/2025

Updated 17/10/2025

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Connelly (1979) states: "Geological and geophysical evidence from a number of studies has established that the Papuan Ultramafic Belt is probably an overthrust sheet of oceanic crust and mantle with a thicker crustal section than normal oceanic crust". This hypothesis was first advanced by Thompson in 1957 (see Davies, 1971), and worked out in more detail by Davies (1968, 1971) and Davies and Smith (1971). In 1973 I presented an alternate interpretation of the Papuan Ultramafic Belt. I quote here from the ANZAAS (1973) abstract: "The interpretation advanced and illustrated by cross sections explains the Papuan ultramafic belt as a deeply eroded portion of an uplifted, extinct, west to southwest dipping subduction zone which - after subduction activity ceased in Late Eocene to Oligocene time - rose to the surface and was squeezed out along a major pre-existing shear zone. Owing to the rapid rising of at least 20 kilometres and the concomitant strong erosion of the sprouting orogenic belt, fragments of the oceanic crust and upper mantle from the ancestral subduction zone are now exposed at the surface and form the Papuan ultramafic belt".

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Field Value
Title Mode of emplacement of the Papuan Ultramafic Belt: a discussion
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/en/dataset/c430f338-5f4c-450f-b30c-4bde551a777a
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 20/04/2018
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        140.8,
        -12.0
      ],
      [
        156.0,
        -12.0
      ],
      [
        156.0,
        0.0
      ],
      [
        140.8,
        0.0
      ],
      [
        140.8,
        -12.0
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Mode of emplacement of the Papuan Ultramafic Belt: a discussion". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/mode-of-emplacement-of-the-papuan-ultramafic-belt-a-discussion