General Setting

Physiography
The Sumatra drainage divide follows the crest of the West Coastal Range of the
Barisan Mountains, which trend south-easterly across the southwest sector of the
area and rise to altitudes over 2000 m. Relief is steep and the slopes densely
forested. To the east, the mountains are flanked by the North Coast Foothills
which rarely exceed 500 m, and are composed of sot, younger Tertiary
sediments. A more restricted zone of lower terrain, also occupied by Tertiary
strata but attaining elevations of some 900 m, is present along the west coast in
the south-west of the quadrangle.

Extensive Plio-Pleistocene volcanics form dry, grassy uplands along the north
coast, to the west of Sigli. Summits are generally in the 500-800 m range, apart
from the upstanding forested peak of G. Seulawah Agam (46N 794 603), which
rises to 1810 m. Separating these volcanic hills from the Barisan range is the
Banda Aceh Embayment (Fig. 1), which is occupied by extensive spreads of low-
lying Plio-Plestocene sediments. An extensive coastal plain Is also developed in
the Sigli area.

Two prominent lines of Pleistocene faulting control topographic boundaries over

much of the area and impart a strong NW-SE grain.

In the West Coastal Range the drainage is immature, deeply incised, and
dendritic on the gross scale, though influenced by structure and lithology. In the
North Coast Foothills, the drainage is superposed and frequently cuts across the
trend of the younger Tertiary deposits before meandering across the coastal plain
to the Strait of Malacca. Rivers draining G. Seulawah Agam have adopted a radial
pattern.

There is evidence of a long period of uplift. Late Oligocene to Early Miocene

sediments capping the West Coastal Range indicate uplift of the order of 2000 m.
Concordant but now disscred summit levels at about 200 m are prominent SE of
Bueng, and ten well-defined levels are preserved along the main fault
escarpment SE of Banda Aceh. Uplifted Plio-Pleistocene reef limestone are
present north of Sigli. Prominent terrace sets along the main rivers and a
prograding coastline indicate continued uplift.

Regional Tectonic Setting

The quadrangle straddles a NW-SE trending mobile belt whose rock sequences
originated during the Late Mesozoic in a marginal basin/volcanic arc setting, near
the western edge of the Sundaland continental plate. Tectonism, associated with
the closure of this marginal basin, took place during the Late Cretaceous,
probably as a result of reorientation of spreading directions in the Indian Ocean.

Superimposed on the Late Mesozoic mobile belt is a Tertiary volcanic

arc/geanticline whose activity climaxed in the Plio-Pleistocene. The arc is the
north-western extension of the Sunda volcanic arc (Java and adjacent island) and
is associated with subduction of Indian Ocean seafloor at the offshore trench to
the west.

Oblique approach of the Indo-Australian plate to Sundaland caused development

of the major dextral strike-slip Sumatra Fault System, or SFS, parallel to the plate
interface; several of this system cross the present quadrangle. The system
appears to link with a series of transform fault in the Andaman Sea to the north.
The Andaman Sea is itself a back-arc basin, developed since the Late Miocene;
its history may have been similar to that of the Late Mesozoic marginal basin.

Faulting
The present day topography of the Quadrangle is dominated by two subparallel
seismically active NW-SE trending faults. They are the most north-westerly
segments of the Sumatra Fault System (SFS) which axially bisects Sumatra (Katili
& Hehuwat 1967, Tjia 1977). The north-eastern fault, the Lam Teuba-Baro Fault
(Fig. 2) cuts the Lam Teuba volcanics and stongly disrupts the Tertiary sediment
to the south-east, where it has an element of downthrow to the NE. It bifurcates
in the Kr. Baro, the main arm turning to coverage, in the area of Tangse, with the
second segment. This arm forms a graben like depression in the middle course of
the Kr. Baro-Bengga, with faceted valley sides, and is associated with fault
gouges and a line of hot springs. The second arm appears to die out in the upper
Kr. Tiro valley, (Kr. Meuk) in the area of the former Pliocene graben occupied by
the complexly deformed Meuk Member conglomerates.

The Banda Aceh-Anu Fault limits the Tertiary outcrop SW of Seulimeum. The fault
line is less pronounced nearer Banda Aceh owing to the north-westwards decline
in height and width of the west coast mountain-range, but it continues out to sea
where it defines the eastern shore-line of P. Peunasu and P. Breueh. In the lower
Aceh valley both the geology and topography indicate the fault to be a normal
one, with a major throw to the NE.

The fault forms a graben-like depression in the Tangse district. The convergent
Lam Teuba-Baro Faults is also associated with topographic lows in the same area.

The wedge of pre-Tertiary in the Gle Seukeun area, lying between the middle
Baro valley, appears to be a horst. The north-western boundary of this block is a
line of north-easterly trending faults which also defines the south-eastern
boundary of the Banda Aceh Embayment.

The horst block may still be rising. Streams entering the Kr. Baro from the W
have built up steeply graded boulder-strewn alluvial fans. Destructive debris
flows triggered by an earthquake during heavy rain in December 1976, in the
headwaters of the Bengga and Igeuh valleys, substantially modified the previous
river course across the fans, depositing in the process huge spreas of boulder
gravels. Field evidence suggests this to the a recurrent process.
There is god theoretical (Fitch 1972, Curray et al. 1979) and ground evidence
from further south in Sumatra, to show that the SFS is a compound major dextral
transcurrent fault. The splayed nature of the main faults on this sheet, in
conjunction with their variable throw and complex local geometry, is consistent
with this interpretation. Dextral drainage offsets of 1-2 km affect a number of
left-bank tributaries of the upper Kr. Aceh.

The two lines originated in their present form during the Pleistocene, after folding
of the Seulimeum Formation. They are believed to be reactivation structures
after older faults which controlled sedimentation from the Miocene; data are
insufficient to show how exactly they follow the earlier fault-lines, but they are
probably not far removed from these. One of the older faults, the proto-Lam
Teuba Fault, dextrally rotates and displaces the lines of en-echelon synclines
some 5 km. Dextral displacement is also suggested by the swing in strike of the
Tertiary from E-W to NW-SE in the Kr. Tiro area. The gross disposition of the pre-
Tertiary/Tertiary contact across the Quadrangle is suggestive of rather larger
offsets, but this pattern could arise solely from the uplift, as a horst, of the Gle
Seukeun block.