JOURNAL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF INDIA Vol.81, May 2013, pp.

637-646

A Panoptic View of Western Margin of Sundaland: Causes of Seismic Vulnerability of Sumatra

ABHIJIT DEONATH* and BASAB MUKHOPADHYAY#
*Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Mills Road, Acton, ACT 0200, Australia and Institute for Applied Ecology, University of Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia # Geological Survey of India, 27 J. L. Nehru Road, Kolkata 700016, India Email: addeonath@hotmail.com; basabmukhopadhyay@yahoo.com Abstract: The western margin of Sundaland is affected by two major tectonic events, the India-Eurasia collision and subduction along the Burmese-Andaman-Sunda Arc. Geotectonic analysis of the Burmese-Andaman-Sunda Arc areas reveals that it represents an arc setting exposed both in land and sea environment. Within this broad arc setting, there are individual segments that illustrate discernible trends in terms of structural, seismic and geological characteristics. The Equatorial Region around Sumatra has some peculiar geological/geophysical characteristics that make it a tectonic hotspot. Here a relationship between the active volcanism and the development of forearc basins is established. It is also proposed that the downgoing oceanic plate is more strongly coupled to the overlying plate where it is youngest (~ 40 Ma), has the highest temperature and is topographically most elevated with highest seismic activity. In particular, an increase in convergence rate and presence of youngest oceanic crust appear to be the main controlling factor underpinning the tectonics and surge of recent seismic activity in Sumatra. Keywords: Seismic hazard, Tectonics, Sundaland, Sumatra, Andaman Sea, Myanmar.

INTRODUCTION

The western margin of Sundaland, comprising Sumatra, the Andaman Sea, Burma/Myanmar region (Fig.1a) and surrounding lithosphere represents one of the most seismically active regions of the world, with recent earthquake events disposed as a chain that also include the tsunamigenic Sumatra earthquake (Mw 9.3) of 26 December 2004; Banyak Island earthquake (Mw 8.7) of 28 March 2005 on either side of India - Australia plate boundary (Mukhopadhyay et al. 2010a) and recent 11th April, 2012 Sumatra earthquake (M 8.6) off the west coast of Sumatra (Fig 1b). Even though the Sumatra earthquake (Mw 9.3) originated in the Indian Ocean offshore northern Sumatra, the rupture propagated with variable speed and extended far north into the Andaman Sea area (Ammon et al. 2005, Dasgupta et al. 2005), whereas, the rupture for Banyak Island earthquake transmitted southeast. The 11th April, 2012 Sumatra earthquake (M 8.6), in front of the subduction front along diffused India - Australia plate boundary, followed by a huge aftershock (?) of M 8.2 in a tectonic environment far away of any coupling of lithospheric plates is surprising. Further north to the Andaman Sea, the coastal Bay of Bengal region, though under thick recent alluvium cover, has also

been identified as a potential future seismic hazard zone (Cummins, 2007). Seismic analysis is aimed at a focused study of hazard site immediately after the earthquake event, or the analysis (a big picture analysis) can focus on a broad tectonic region for pinpointing probable hazard zone, narrowing down from the detailed understanding of the tectonic/seismic scenario of the surrounding lithosphere. The latter provides perspective that is useful in understanding various environmental variables that make the site tectonically vulnerable. In this context, identification of a broad deformation zone in the Central Indian Ocean (Royer and Gordon 1997) adjacent to Sumatra is extremely important because it raises the question about narrowness of the plate boundary. In fact, the flurry of earthquakes witnessed in recent times along northern Sumatra has drawn huge attention of geoscientists worldwide. A plot of dates against latitude of earthquake events in the study area (Fig.2) highlights the high density of recent events in the equatorial zone between 5N and 5S latitudes with a relative quiescence around 15N. Majority of post-tsunami studies in Sumatra and the Andaman Sea were region specific and mostly overlooked the broader tectonic picture: impact of

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Fig.1. (a) Location map of Sundaland showing the study area (within Box) in the context of topography and tectonics of surrounding areas after Metcalfe 2011. Large arrows represent absolute motions of plates after Simons et al. 2007. (b) Epicentral map for the study area, period: 1906-2012. The composite beachballs from global CMT of different sectors are shown indicating transverse slip movement in Myanmar, trans-compression in the Andaman forearc, trans-tension in the Andaman Sea and extreme compression in Sumatra sector. ASR:Andaman Spreading Ridge, AR:Alcock Rise, BS:Belt of Shuppen, DF:Dauki Fault, EBT:Eastern Boundary Thrust, RF:Renong Fault, SSF:Shan- Sagaing Fault, SF:Semangko Fault, SR:Sewell Rise, VA:Volacanic Arc, WST: West Sundra Trench; WAF:WEST Andaman Fault.

India-Eurasia collision that shapes the recent tectonics and seismic zones of the region. To understand the broader tectonics and its bearing on seismogenesis, we initiated a systematic geo-seismo-tectonic study of the western Sundaland marginal area (marked box within Fig.1) to reveal the recent tectonic behaviour and causes of seismicity. The studied parameters are seismicity, volcanism, sea-floor age and convergence rate with an objective to connect general plate tectonic theories with offshore and onshore morphologic structures. The study further zooms in to the Sumatra area, detailing the interplay between regional scale tectonism and local features in an attempt to seek understanding of causes of latest seismicity. To achieve the objective stated above, we studied tectonic elements, geology, structure, present crustal motions from the contemporary literature and synthesise them to decipher the tectonic vulnerability of the western margin of Sundaland. In Sumatra, the relationship between high relief areas, volcanic belt and occurrences of forearc basin are studied on SRTM relief maps and genetic correlations

between them are deciphered in relation to tectonic elements present in the surroundings. Hypothesis in line of Ruff and Kanamori (1980) to correlate the recent seismicity in Sumatra with age of the oceanic crust, plate convergence rate, coupling of plate boundaries etc. has been reviewed. Data like age of ocean floor, plate convergence rate are collected and compiled from contemporary literature.
TECTONIC FRAMEWORK AND CRUSTAL MOTION OF WESTERN PART OF SUNDALAND Tectonic framework

The region bears imprints of deformation caused by two major tectonic events during the Cenozoic: India-Eurasia collision and subduction along the western margin of Sundaland. The 3800 km long convergent margin surrounding the Sagaing and Sumatra wrench fault systems is characterized by the presence of elongated arcuate linear belts running parallel to the physiographic features (Figs. 1 and 3) in an arc setting. The study area can be sub-divided
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Fig.2. Plot of latitude versus date of seismic events with Mw > 5.0 occurring between latitudes -10 S to 40 N (time period 1976 and 2005) in the study area.

into four tectonic sub-zones: backarc basin, volcanic arc, forearc basin and outer arc - typical of the present continentcontinent collision in Indo-Burma Ranges (IBR) towards north and arc setting in the south, marginal to the continental mass of the Sundaland (Fig.3). The backarc basin comprises of major Tertiary basins deposited on Pre-Tertiary basement in Sumatra. There is a clear continuation of the North Sumatra basin as Mergui basin in the Andaman Sea. Further north, the backarc basin is ill-developed and narrows down to form a linear Eastern trough in Myanmar as an effect of active continent-continent collision with telescoping of the oceanic crust. The volcanic arc (Fig.4) runs close and parallel to major strike-slip faults (Sumatra fault and West Andaman fault) and are contiguously placed and spatially coincides with topographic highs (Barber et al. 2005). In Myanmar, it is represented as a presently subdued Wuntho-Popa-Chindwin volcanic arc, popping up at places, through the Central Myanmar basin (Mitchell 1993). In the Andaman Sea, it forms seamounts and two prominent subaerial Quaternary volcanoes, the active Barren Island volcano and the passive Narcondam Island (Curray 2005). During Quaternary to Recent time, focused transfer of a hydrous subduction-zone component to the arc produced inner-arc magmatism in the BarrenNarcondum volcanoes (Pal et al. 2007 a, b; Pal 2011). Narcondam Volcano records daciteandesite magmatism, whereas, Barren volcano erupt basaltic magma (Pal et al. 2007 a, b). Cenozoic forearc basins and outer arcs are endowed with
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significant record of depositional history of the region. In Sumatra, the forearc basin comprises a sequence of terrestrial and marine sediments deposited on a Lower Eocene carbonate platform depicting various regression and transgression episodes with peak transgression during the Middle Miocene (Barber et al. 2005). The Andaman Sea, being dominated by a recent ocean floor spreading event, manifests West Basin, Invisible Bank and West Sewell Ridge as the forearc basin (Curray 2005). The Myanmar region, on the contrary, has a broad arcuate Western trough occupied by thick marine and terrestrial Cenozoic sequences (Mitchell 1993). The outer arc (forearc islands) mimics the Tertiary sequence of the forearc basin in Sumatra. In the Andaman Group of Islands, the Andaman-Nicobar ridge typifies the outer arc and, like the Sumatra forearc, documents phases of basin inversions, with peak turbidite sedimentation during the Oligocene when the Andaman Flysch Group was deposited (Chakraborty et al. 2002). Andaman Islands have been interpreted as a part of accretionary prism that contains numerous northsouth-trending alternating slices of CretaceousPalaeocene ophiolites and abundant Tertiary sedimentary rocks (Pal et al. 2003). The ophiolites form relatively coherent bodies, several kilometres long in the eastern part of the island chain and small, isolated klippes in the western part. A thrust contact between ophiolite and the underlying and intercalating Eocene sediments and the occurrence of ophiolite slices at different structural levels suggest that the ophiolites were emplaced during Eocene

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time by repeated thrusting in the outer-arc environment (Pal 2011). The equivalent of outer arc in Myanmar and northeast India, however, presents a more complex picture, because of overprinting by India-Asia collision of the subduction related features. The Indo-Burma Ranges (IBR) consists mainly of folded and thrusted Eocene turbidites with intervening ophiolite sequences (Nandy 2001 and references therein). Two sets of ophiolites that were accreted during the Early Cretaceous and mid-Eocene are juxtaposed in this belt (Acharyya, 2007). Compilations of focal mechanism solutions of earthquakes between 1977 and 2008 in Myanmar, the Andaman Sea and northern Sumatra and their analyses are indicative of some patterns that deal with plate tectonic interpretation of the region. Distinct tectonic environment as inferred from composite CMT solutions consists of major transverse slip movement in Myanmar, trans-compression in the Andaman forearc and trans-tension in the Andaman Sea and finally extreme compression in the highly coupled plate boundaries in Sumatra sector (Fig.1b) (see Mukhopadhyay et al. 2010a for details). The trans-tensional activity along the Andaman spreading ridge has also generated many earthquake swarms (1983-1984, 1993 and 2005 swarms) manifesting complex faulting process, dyke intrusion and accompanied pore pressure perturbation (Mukhopadhyay and Dasgupta 2008, Mukhopadhyay et al. 2010b). The compressional axis is of low angle (< 30o) with variable trend; NNE-SSW in Burma, NW-SE in Andaman Sea and NE-SW in northern Sumatra (Mukhopadhyay et al. 2010a).
Present Crustal Motions

Sundaland has been shown to rotate relative to the Eurasian plate (Chamot-Rooke and Le Pichon 1999) at a rate of 6-9 mm/yr (Simons et al., 2007) and hence recognized as a distinct plate. Present day motions in the study area are presented (Fig.4). From GPS measurements, the relative speed between Indo-Australia and Sundaland is estimated to increase from 47 mm/yr due N in northern Sumatra to
Fig.3. Tectonic elements of the study areas on SRTM images. (a) Myanmar. IBR = Indo-Burma Range, WT = Western Trough of Central Myanmar Basin, ET = Eastern Trough of Central Myanmar Basin, SF = Sagaing Fault. (b) Andaman Sea. ANR = Andaman-Nicobar Ridge, SR = Andman Spreading Ridge, AC = Alcock Rise, SW = Sewell Rise, MB = Mergui Basin, WAF = West Andaman Fault, SFS = Sumatra Fault System. (c) Sumatra. FR = Forearc Ridge, FB = Forearc Basin, BB = Backarc Basin, SFS = Sumatra Fault System, 90E = Ninetyeast Ridge, WR = Wharton Ridge, IFZ = Investigator Fracture Zone, SS = Sunda Strait.
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63 mm/yr due 14N south of the Sunda Strait (Simons et al. 2007). Further northward from Sumatra, the decrease in convergence rate continues and is recorded as 38 mm/yr at 18N latitude (Socquet et al. 2006). According to Kamesh Raju et al. (2004), the Andaman Sea is opening at a rate varying between 16 and 38 mm/yr. Curray et al. (1979) estimate that the Andaman Sea has spread at 37 mm/yr on average over the past 11 million years. Around Burma, approximately 50% of the resulting motion (~18 mm/yr) is accommodated by strike-slip motion on the Sagaing fault (Vigny et al. 2003). The remaining movement is partitioned into oblique slip combined with eastward subduction of Indian oceanic crust along the Arakan trench (Stork et al. 2008). Other geological features that could accommodate some relative motion are the ArakanYoma ranges and the central basins of Burma (Le Dain et al. 1984). Further, the results of elastic modeling (Socquet et al. 2006) indicate a possibility that loading of a locked Arakan trench and a locked Sagaing fault at depth may compensate the extra motion. Sieh and Natawidjaja (2000) reported an average displacement along the Sumatra fault of 25 mm/yr with a minimum of 10 mm/yr in southern Sumatra and 37 mm/yr north of Sumatra. A compatible slip rate of ~26mm/yr at 2.7N has been reported by GPS measurements, though the GPS-derived slip rate of ~23 mm/yr at 0.8S is higher (Genrich et al. 2000; McCaffery et al. 2000). It is suggested that the entire Sumatra region, extending up to 750 km inland from the trench, and including Thailand and Malaysia is under active deformation (Simons et al. 2007) which may be due to strong coupling in the subduction zone at Sumatra (Prawirodirdjo et al. 1997; Simoes et al. 2004).
TECTONIC FEATURES OF SUMATRA AND SEISMICITY Development of Forearc Basin in Sumatra

Fig.4. Average motions (mm/yr) in the region with Regional tectonic framework after Mitchell 1985. Arrows with open heads represent relative motion between Indo-Australia and Sunda plates. Single headed arrow represents strike-slip motion along Sagaing-Sumatra dextral fault system. Black dotted line is Sunda Trench and its northern extension. References: & : Simons et al. (2007), * : Sieh et al. (1991), ^ : Socquet et al. (2006), # : Curray et al. (1979), @ : Vigny et al. (2003). An: Andaman Is, Ni: Nicobar Is, o: Mogok Belt, +: Paleogene tin-granite belt, -: sedimentary province, ET: Eastern Trough, WT: Western Trough, IBR: Indo Burma Ranges, KF: Khlong Marui Fault, KI: Kra Isthmus, SF: Sagaing Fault.
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Present day volcanic arcs are believed to be surface expression of regions of melt production in the asthenosphere. This view is strengthened by observed correlation between arc volcano spacing and tomographic anomaly regions in northeast Japan (Tamura et al. 2002) and observation of extremely low seismic velocities and high attenuation beneath volcanically active arcs and of higher velocities and lower attenuation in regions lacking active volcanic arc (Wiens et al. 2008). In Sumatra, Quaternary volcanoes mostly lie within 50 km of the Sumatra fault system. The strike-wise distribution of Quaternary volcanoes in Sumatra mainland reveals zones of densely packed volcanic centers and those with sparse or no volcanicity (Fig.5a). Furthermore, zones

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Fig.5.Topography and bathymetry of Sumatra and their relation to volcanic centers and shallow ( < 60 km deep) earthquakes. Central band highlights the area near equator (230"N 230"S). (a) Volcanic centers (big circles) and earthquake hypocenters (small circles). Ellipses marked EA, EB, EC1 and EC2 encircle earthquake clusters in the forearc region. (b) Digital elevation model using SRTM data depicting topography and bathymetry with high relief areas (dashed outlines marked VA, VB and VC) on mainland and forearc basins (solid outlines marked FA, FB and FC). sm = Simeulue, ns = Nias, sb = Siberut, en = Enggano, WR = Wharton Ridge, IFZ = Investigator Fracture Zone.

with high density of volcanic centers occur adjacent to well-developed forearc basins, e.g., southernmost Sumatra (Figs. 5a, 5b). Another way of looking at it is matching of high relief areas (VA, VB, VC in Figure 5b) on the mainland with individual basins in the forearc region (FA, FB, FC in Fig.5b). Therefore, if volcanoes are considered as surface expression of melt producing regions in the asthenosphere, the above spatial correlation is suggestive of the notion that occurrence of melt ponds facilitates forearc basin development in the adjacent lithosphere. It also seems logical to imagine that, because of special rheology of areas beneath the mainland with melt production, these areas are able to pull forearc basins down thereby facilitating basin marginal faulting and consequent deepening of the basin. This can be further verified by looking at the distribution of recent shallow seismicity which, despite being concentrated mainly in the forearc, reveals similar alternating belts of densely packed and thinly distributed earthquakes which are parallel to and adjacent to volcanic zones in central and southern Sumatra (Fig5a). Northern part of the basin marked FC in Figure 5b shows consistency in width and depth over a large area. This part is, as expected from the rationale discussed above, mostly free of recent shallow seismic events except for a small cluster marked EC1 in the outer arc ridge

south of Siberut Island. Cluster EA in northern Sumatra is scattered all over the forearc area where neither the basin nor the ridge is properly developed. Forearc basin development work in this area appears to be in progress at shallow levels. The southern part of the forearc basin FC has the deepest floor near the center of the basin. The floor gradually becomes shallow and the basin narrows northward towards Enggano Island and southward towards the Sunda Strait. Consequently cluster EC2 in southern Sumatra shows events spread mostly in forearc basin parts where the basin narrows. Incidentally, Enggano is also one of the sites besides Simeulue and Nias to have witnessed high magnitude earthquake in recent times. The forearc basin FB, located next to Nias Island very close to the equator, is rather poorly developed. The basin is separated from the other two basins and the effort to smooth out these constrictions is reflected in the seismic events in the cluster marked EB. The peculiar distribution of the events of this cluster between southern and northern ends of the forearc basins F A and F C respectively, which is a bathymetric high, does not appear to be a mere coincidence.
Recent Seismicity in Sumatra Some Inferences

Tectonic evolution of the entire belt appears to have

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A PANOPTIC VIEW OF WESTERN MARGIN OF SUNDALAND: CAUSES OF SEISMIC VULNERABILITY OF SUMATRA 643 Table 1. Variation in various geologic and tectonic parameters in the region from north (Eastern Himalayan Syntaxis) to south (Sunda Strait) [compiled from different sources cited in the text of this article] Tectonic Zone Northern Myanmar South Myanmar Andaman Sea Northern Sumatra Southern Sumatra Regime Compression Extension Compression Extension Seismic distribution High, Dispersed Low Recent High High, Focussed 55 mm/yr. 63 mm/yr. 2 Ma India-Sunda relative motion 35 mm/yr. Wrench Fault reactivation 22 Ma Wrench Fault displacement 18 mm/yr. 37 mm/yr. 25 mm/yr. 10 mm/yr.

progressed systematically from north to south (Table 1) gradually leaving imprints of India-Asia collision on a tectonically active Late Cretaceous margin. The geology of the region suggests that the depocenter for turbidite deposition, which began at the present IBR in the earliest Tertiary times and deposited on Cretaceous ocean floor after the separation of India from Australia, gradually moved southwards with the passage of time. This is because the ocean crust is depressed as it passes down into the subduction trench and sediment was derived from the rising Himalayas to the north in the Miocene to build the Bengal and Nicobar fans. The subduction trench from South Pagai southward is 6000m deep. This depocentre lacks sedimentary fill (Barber et al. 2005). This may in part be because of early development of negative buoyancy of the oldest oceanic lithosphere now represented by the Cretaceous ophiolites of the IBR. Another contributing factor to this depositional pattern may be the effect of jamming of India against Eurasia since Eocene. Dextral motion along the Sagaing fault, initiated after 22 Ma (Searle et al. 2007), was followed by bending of the outer arc in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and opening of Andaman Sea since 11 Ma (Kamesh Raju et al. 2004). Finally the activation of Sumatra fault at 2 Ma (Sieh and Natawidjaja, 2000) is the southernmost expression of the oblique convergence. As slowing down of plate motion continued in the north, pressure continued to build in the leading front to generate extreme fold amplification at Namche Barwa starting from 3.5 Ma (Burg et al. 1997) and thickening of the crust (Mukhopadhyay et al. 2011). Purely due to strengthening of oceanic lithosphere with age, a pull develops at the subduction margin because of negative buoyancy. With increasing distance from the midocean ridge, the density difference between the lithosphere and the asthenosphere gradually increases causing gravitational instability of oceanic lithosphere when it is ~40 million years old (Oxburgh and Parmentier 1977). The downward pull develops when the density difference is approximately less than 10% (Meissner and Mooney 1998, Schott and Schmeling 1998, Schott et al. 2000, Anderson 2006). As expected, such a pull affected the Myanmar region
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first which has the oldest oceanic lithosphere, followed in temporal sequence by the Andaman Sea and Sumatra regions. The reactivation ages of various segments of the wrench system (Table 1) testify this. There are important implications in the study area of application of Ruff and Kanamoris (1980) proposition that older oceanic lithosphere is weakly coupled with the overlying lithosphere as compared to a younger oceanic lithosphere. Wharton Ridge represents an abandoned spreading ridge (Whittaker et al. 2007) with ocean floor ages increasing on both sides. The oceanic lithosphere is youngest at the equator, 43 Ma (Krishna et al. 1995) in the Sumatra region, and therefore, is expected to be more strongly coupled than the areas both south and north of the area. Besides the age of the oceanic lithosphere, Ruff and Kanamori (1980) also consider convergence rate to be an important factor in determining the strength of coupling with faster convergence making the interface strongly coupled. The convergence rate in the study area is regulated by docking of India against Eurasia in Eocene which halted its unbound northward march. The brake applied to the motion gradually passed on southward as is evident from increasing velocity of the Indo-Australian plate southward (Fig. 4). Starting from north of the study area, the convergence rate increases and reaches a maximum in southern Sumatra. This factor also seems to be at work in making the interface at Sumatra strongly coupled. Observations of scattered shallow seismic events in the north, as opposed to focussed events in the south (Fig.5) as discussed above, is in strong accordance with the variation in coupling along the western margin of Southeast Asia. The area where Wharton Ridge and Investigator Fracture Zone meet Sunda Trench shows unique structural and tectonic features and has been designated as central domain by Sieh and Natawidjaja (2000). The coastline, forearc ridge and Sumatran fault trace all swerve north of this equatorial central domain. The forearc basin at the intersection is poorly developed in comparison with the basins north and south of the equatorial domain (Fig.5b). This domain acquires uniqueness by being adjacent to structurally disturbed oceanic lithosphere that

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controls to some extent the nature of deformation in the overriding plate. Such behaviour is expected in a tightly coupled pair of plates; the tight coupling is also evident from the composite CMT plot (for details see Figure 9 of Mukhopadhyay et al. 2010a). It is no surprise therefore, that recent large earthquakes of 26 December 2004 and 25 March 2005 have epicenters in this domain. A high convergence rate coupled with youngest crust makes this domain strongly coupled and consequently most dangerous in terms of hazard potential. In contrast to this, in the Andaman Sea and the Myanmar regions the marginal interface is weakly coupled and the strength progressively decreases northward because of an increase in the age of ocean floor as well as decrease in convergence rate. The weak interface offers little resistance as the upper crust flows from southeastern Tibet first southward and then westward (Shen et al. 2005) producing movement that competes with the plate motion (Deonath et al. 2008). Whereas, GPS measurements show that the upper crust is moving northwards and northeastwards throughout the forearc and western Sumatra presumably because it is coupled to the movement of the Indian Plate (Prawirodirdjo et al. 1997), the results of GEODYSSEA project indicate that Sundaland as a whole is moving towards east at 7-10 mm/yr relative to Eurasia (Michel et al. 2001). Forearc basin is relatively uniformly developed in southern Sumatra. In northern Sumatra, irregularly shaped basins are separated by high relief areas in the forearc region (Figure 5b). The prominent forearc constrictions in the central equatorial domain match areas of low Quaternary volcanicity in the mainland and hence, by inference, are adjacent to sub-surface areas with relatively less or no melt. The ocean floor in this domain has just crossed the magical 40 Ma mark and is, therefore, only recently starting to cause sufficient pull to break the coupling. This pull is seeking to smooth out the entire forearc basin by removing the constrictions that are prominent in the equatorial domain.
CONCLUSIONS

Andaman Sea and Myanmar - Northeast India. The entire region forms an extended belt with signature and characteristics of an island arc setting. However in details, there are discernible sub-regions with characteristic trends that have been brought out by this study. We emphasize that the concentration of seismic activity between 5N latitude and the equator can be correlated with the topography, bathymetry, age of ocean crust, seismicity, volcanic activity and development of the forearc basins etc in Sumatra. A plausible hypothesis is also emerged that there is a relationship exists between the active volcanism and the development of forearc basins, and conversely that forearc basins are absent or poorly developed where volcanicity is not active. It is also proposed that the downgoing oceanic plate is more strongly coupled to the overlying plate where it is youngest, has the highest temperature and is topographically most elevated with highest seismic activity. Volcanism, forearc development and seismicity are manifestations of recent tectonism in Sumatra. Quaternary volcanism has been correlated with zones of melt production, which are found to lie adjacent to zones of clustered shallow seismicity and also of forearc development. This correlation reveals that the forearc basins as well as the bulges hosting melt are well developed on either side of constrictions characterizing the equatorial domain. The oceanic crust at this intersection point being the youngest (~ 40 Ma) has only recently started developing enough pull and is showing signs of incipient forearc basin development by breaking the tight coupling through violent seismic events. The correlation of Quaternary volcanism on Sumatran mainland and recent seismicity with the age of downgoing slab shows that the extinct Wharton Ridge spreading center is causing violent seismicity because the crustal age of 40 Ma allows slab pull strong enough for a decoupling of upper crust and lower slab and forearc basin development. This hypothesis may be true for Sumatra region but its acceptance to other similar tectonic arc environment in global scenario warrant detail study. Acknowledgements: The first author would like to sincerely thank Gordon Lister for providing opportunity to work in the area. Valuable suggestions from Marie-Aude Bonnardot, Daniele Viete, Marnie Forster and Simon Richards are also appreciated.

The equatorial domain of Sumatra has witnessed increase in seismic activity in recent times. Structurally and tectonically the region is similar in many aspects to the

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(Received: 14 May 2012; Revised form accepted: 26 July 2012)

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