Plate tectonic significance of Late Oligocene/Early Miocene deep sea sedimentation at Maewo, Vanuatu (New Hebrides)

Eight lithofacies representing a westward trending, deep sea fan, dominantly deposited from mass flow mechanisms, are recognised in geologic sections in the lower part of the Sarava Formation, of Late Oligocene/Early Miocene age, on Maewo Island, Vanuatu, New Hebrides. Also present representing the floor on which the deep sea fan prograded are non-calcareous, red siltstone and minor green siltstone which indicate deposition beyond the calcareous compensation depth, i.e. a depth greater than 4.25 km, and rare thin airfall ash. Previous workers proposed that rifting occurred in the area now occupied by Maewo during the Mid Miocene. However, the great depth at which the Late Oligocene/Early Miocene strata were deposited suggests that rifting occurred prior to the Late Oligocene. Rifting may have occurred even earlier because Pentecost Island, which lies south of Maewo, has a dismembered ophiolite suite which ranges in age from 35-28 Ma (Oligocene). The ophiolite suite may have formed in an interarc environment. The writer's reconstruction of the Oligocene arc system of the New Hebrides is an analogue of the present day Mariana Arc System. Interarc rifting ceased by the Early Miocene and during the Mid-Late Miocene the subduction of zone may have migrated westwards to lie along the Maewo-Pentecost axis.