ABSTRACT: The Circum-Pacific Geospatial Data Project on geological correlation in East and Southeast Asia: biostratigraphy

Dutro Jr, J. Thomas , U.S. Geological Survey, Washington, DC

One of the four goals of the Working Group on Geological Correlation (WGGC), formed in 1996 cooperatively by CPGDP and CCOP, is the construction of biostratigraphic digital data bases for East Asia, including the major basins. National Coordinators from ten CCOP member countries agreed on general project objectives at the First Meeting of WGGC at Chiang Mai, Thailand (March, 1996). In 1997, WGGC developed a biozonation protocol and a draft for an Asian Phanerozoic time scale. Small teams of paleontologists and stratigraphers from each country have been accumulating and digitizing data during the past two years. The biostratigraphy of the dominantly cratonal rocks of the earlier Phanerozoic, commonly folded or metamorphosed, are still under study.

The understanding of the South China Sea region is the most nearly complete, especially for the economically important rocks of the Cenozoic. Countries bordering the main basin (Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia) have relatively complete depositional sequences that yield sequences of microfossil zones. Planktic and benthic foraminifera, radiolarians, acritarchs, nannoplankton and pollen/spores have been utilized with varying degrees of completeness in these countries, each of which is preparing its own Biozonation Chart. The resulting biozonations are correlated to international biozones which were founded mostly on occurrences and ranges in paleotropical marine environments. A Regional South-East Asian Cenozoic zonation is being developed and examples, mainly from the Neogene (Miocene-Pliocene)interval, are comparred with other regiona, especially Australia, New Zealand, the north Pacific and the Caribbean. The depositional histories, including thicknesses and facies relationships, are developed in the context of plate tectonic scenarios for the region.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90913©2000 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, Bali, Indonesia