The Geology of the Western Highlands of New Guinea

Abstract

The oldest rocks in the Western Highlands of New Guinea are granite and metamorphic rocks, and these are unconformably overlain by an incomplete marine succession of Permian, Upper Jurassic, Cretaceous, Eocene, Oligocene and Miocene sediments with a maximum thickness of 34,000 ft. The sedimentary succession in the east of the region is much thicker than in the west. Jurassic seas transgressed from the east. Studies of the faunas and petrology of the sediments show that the western part of the region was out of range of the sources of Cretaceous vulcanism and slow pelagic sedimentation continued into the Lower Miocene. By the Middle Miocene a volcanic island arc had developed in the vicinity of the Lai Syncline and the sediments are of shallow-water type, rich in volcanic debris. Both sediments and basement were folded into a number of anticlines and synclines at the end of the Pliocene. Vigorous erosion was followed by extensive Pleistocene vulcanism in the west. Pleistocene glaciation occurred in the Bismarck Range down to about 13,000 feet above sea-level.