Terr. Atmos. Ocean. Sci., Vol. 26, No. 6, 679-686, December 2015 doi: 10.3319/TAO.2015.05.11.04(TC) Philippine Island Arc System Tectonic Features Inferred from Magnetic Data Analysis Wen-Bin Doo1, *, Shu-Kun Hsu1, 2, and Leo Armada 2 1 Center for Environmental Studies, National Central University, Taoyuan City, Taiwan, R.O.C. 2 Department of Earth Sciences, National Central University, Taoyuan City, Taiwan, R.O.C. Received 18 February 2013, revised 22 November 2013, accepted 11 May 2015 ABSTRACT Running along the middle of the Philippine archipelago from south to north, the Philippine fault zone is one of the world’s major strike-slip faults. Intense volcanism in the archipelago is attributed to the ongoing subduction along the trench systems surrounding it. This study interprets the magnetic data covering the Philippine fault zone and the bounding archi- pelago subduction systems to understand the structural characteristics of the study area. Magnetic data analysis suggests that the Philippine fault is roughly distributed along the boundary of high/low magnetization and separates the different amplitude features of the first order analytic signal. Visayas province is a specific area bounded by the other parts of the Philippine ar- chipelago. Further differentiating the tectonic units, the proto-Southeast Bohol Trench should be the main tectonic boundary between Visayas and Mindanao. A clear NE - SW boundary separates Luzon from Visayas as shown by the variant depths to the top of the magnetic basement. This boundary could suggest the different tectonic characteristics of the two regions. Key words: Philippine fault, Philippine archipelago, Magnetic data, Tectonic Citation: Doo, W. B., S. K. Hsu, and L. Armada, 2015: Philippine island arc system tectonic features inferred from magnetic data analysis. Terr. Atmos. Ocean. Sci., 26, 679-686, doi: 10.3319/TAO.2015.05.11.04(TC) 1. INTRODUCTION The Philippine archipelago resulted from late Meso- the whole of the Philippine archipelago from southern Min- zoic and Cenozoic poly-phase evolution involving subduc- danao to northern Luzon (Fig. 1) (Allen 1962; Barrier et al. tions, collisions and strike-slip faulting. The archipelago 1991). In spite of its recognition as a major geological struc- consists mainly of accreted volcanic arcs, marginal basins, ture and the location of destructive earthquakes, a number of ophiolites, and continental fragments constituting the Phil- characteristics such as fault location, slip rates, deformation ippine Mobile Belt (PMB) (Karig 1983; Mitchell et al. 1986; and history are uncertain. In previous Philippine fault stud- McCabe et al. 1987), on the western border of the Philip- ies, Allen (1962) studied the geomorphic fault expression in pine Sea plate. This region is a complex portion of the tec- the central Philippines and concluded it to be left-lateral, as tonic boundary between the Eurasian Plate (Sunda Block), did Rutland (1967). This conclusion was confirmed by Mo- Indo-Australian and Philippine Sea Plate, comprising most rante and Allen (1973). Since then, studies on the Philippine of the Philippines. These tectonic plates have compressed fault have been proposed using various approaches (e.g., and lifted parts of the Philippines causing extensive fault- Cardwell et al. 1980; Lewis et al. 1982; Karig 1983; Wolfe ing, primarily on a N-S axis. The main fault, the Philippine 1983; Barcelona 1986). Bischke et al. (1990) used aeromag- fault zone, runs most of the length of the Philippines (Fig. netic data to interpret the Philippine fault system and identi- 1). Overall, the free-air gravity anomaly is dominated by fied a major, previously unrecognized, branch of the Phil- topography effects. ippine fault, named the Sibuyan Sea branch. However, in The Philippine fault zone is a system of active left-lateral their studies, they did not apply other analytical methods to strike-slip fault that stretches more than 1200 km, throughout interpret the magnetic data. In this study we present several analytical techniques to examine the magnetic data and dis- cuss the features in the Philippine fault zone and the general * Corresponding author Philippine island arc system tectonic characteristics. E-mail: [email protected] 680 Doo et al. Plate at the eastern margin of Luzon is mainly decoupled along the left-lateral Polilio-Philippine fault zone. They consider the eastern section of North Luzon as part of the Philippine Sea Plate and proposed that the Philippine fault has major implications on the plate boundary delineation in the Philippines. Queano et al. (2007) stated that based on the convergence rate (8 cm yr-1), the Wadati-Benioff zone depth (< 200 km), the age of volcanic rocks, the East Luzon Trench is widely believed to have been initiated 3 - 5 Ma (Karig 1975; Cardwell et al. 1980; Hamburger et al. 1983; Ozawa et al. 2004). This implies that prior to the Pliocene, parts of the Philippine archipelago, including north Luzon, formed part of the Philippine Sea Plate. The Philippine fault resulted from oblique conver- gence between the Philippine Sea Plate and Sunda Block/ Eurasian Plate that started during the Middle Miocene (Au- relio et al. 1991) and is propagating southward, following a simple curved trace in the central and southern Philippines. All faults in the Philippines are inter-related by the caus- ative PMB tectonic forces or tectonic induced volcanism. In northern Luzon the fault has become braided and is no lon- ger single. Several subordinate faults are intimately linked to Fig. 1. Free-air gravity anomaly map in the Philippines. Black lines the evolution of the Philippine fault zone. The Legaspi Lin- indicate the Philippine fault system. CF: Cotabato Fault; CT: Cota- bato Trench; LL: Legaspi Lineament; M: Mindoro; SSF: Sibuyan Sea eament is seismically active and is a left-lateral fault, acting Fault; Zam: Zamboanga Peninsula. as a transfer fault connecting the Philippine Fault Zone and the Philippine Trench. An offshore extension of the Philip- pine fault zone in the central Philippines is the left-lateral Sibuyan Sea Fault. After collision with the Palawan-Min- 2. TECTONIC SETTING OF THE PHILIPPINES doro continental block, continued motion along the Manila The Philippine archipelago is bounded to the east and trench north of Mindoro has ruptured the central Philippines west by subduction zones (Fig. 1). West of the archipelago along the Sibuyan Sea fault branch of the Philippine fault are the east-dipping subduction zones along the Manila (Bischke et al. 1990). Mindanao presents another left-lateral Trench, Negros Trench, Sulu Trench, and the Cotabato fault, the NW - SE trending Sindangan-Cotabato-Daguma Trench, which accommodate deformation due to the sub- Lineament (also called Cotabato Fault), the northern exten- ducting Sunda Plate beneath the PMB (Lewis and Hayes sion of which connects with the Siayan-Sindangan Suture 1984; Stephan et al. 1986; Rangin 1989). On the eastern Zone (Yumul et al. 2008). boundary of the archipelago, the Philippine Sea Plate, through oblique subduction, is being consumed along the Philippine Trench and East Luzon Trough (Cardwell 3. MAGNETIC DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION et al. 1980; Hamburger et al. 1983) connected by an E - NE trending transcurrent fault. The East Luzon Trough is a Magnetic data generally provide fundamental informa- young feature, defined by a shallow Benioff zone and lacks tion about the geological structural characteristics and the any associated volcanism (Hamburger et al. 1983; Bautis- volcanic nature of underlying sources, particularly the depths ta et al. 2001). These subduction zones together with the and geometries of magnetic sources. Doo et al. (2015) com- collision zones in Taiwan, Mindoro, Panay and Mindanao piled magnetic data including land, marine and aeromag- islands form a contiguous complex boundary between the netic data to obtain a new magnetic anomaly map of East colliding Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. Asia. This dataset covers the Philippine fault zone and the Gervasio (1967) first defined the PMB, a zone of in- bounding archipelago subduction systems (Fig. 2). A new tense deformation and active seismicity between conver- magnetic dataset is processed in this study with different gent zones bounding the Philippine Archipelago, to include data reduction and inversion techniques, such as magnetic North Luzon, South Luzon, West Visayas, East Visayas, inversion, analytic signal and spectrum analysis. Based on Northwest Mindanao, Zamboanga, Cotabato, and the rest of the results from the new dataset, magnetic signature inter- Mindanao with Catanduanes Island. However, Lagmay et pretations of the various tectonic elements are inferred for al. (2009) suggested that the motion of the Philippine Sea the Philippine tectonic setting. Philippine Island Arc System Tectonic Features 681 located roughly along the boundary between high and low 3.1 Geomagnetic Characteristics of the Philippine magnetization (Fig. 3). This result also illustrated that strains Island Arc System are easily induced at the boundary due to the different com- To understand the geomagnetic characteristics of the positions. Another significant feature is the NE - SW trend- Philippine Island arc system, we conducted a magnetization ing high magnetization zone distributed along the Cagayan inversion using the magnetic anomalies of Doo et al. (2015). de Sulu Ridge (Fig. 3) and is extended to Masbate (west side A 10 × 10 km magnetic anomaly grid spacing is adopted in of the Philippine fault). However, it shows less continuous this work. Furthermore, we assume that the magnetic anom- south of Panay. Bellon and Rangin (1991) proposed that the alies are attributed to an equivalent layer with a constant Cagayan de Sulu Ridge is colliding with the southern part of thickness of 5 km and the top of each block is the seafloor. Panay based on the dacite and andesite from the Cagayan de The corresponding bathymetry is gridded at the same spac- Sulu Ridge that had been accreted and emplaced onland in ing as the magnetic data.