Publications

Geographically, West Timor is located in Nusa Tenggara Timur Province, Indonesia which is adjacent to the east and north with Republic Democratic Timor Leste. West Timor is part of Timor Island which is geologically located in Banda arc – Australian continental collision zone, the youngest tectonic collision product in the world which created complexity of geology. Recently, Tectonic situation of west Timor has been explained by many researchers as over thrusted, rebound, imbricated, duplex, over-thrust margin, and basement involved which developed wide exposure zone of Paleozoic – Mesozoic and Tertiary sequences. Major publication also explained Timor Island as distal part of Australian continental plate that consist of distal marine sediment from Paleozoic (Permian) to Quaternary. All geological background above created psychology stigma that West Timor onshore was not potential for hydrocarbon accumulation due to “complexity of geology”. This paper will discuss a comprehensive research results around West Timor area which are successfully discovered Paleozoic lacustrine sediment, implication to tectonic concepts and petroleum system. The Paleozoic lacustrine sediment of West Timor onshore are characterized by intercalated black shale with papery structure and consist of algae layered with sulphur content. Age and depositional environment information was confirmed from pollen samples which show range of Permian – Older than Permian and fresh water pollen species. The discovery of lacustrine environment in Permian age give us new insight of syn-rift sequence series in West Timor onshore which have terrestrial syn-rift sediment. Other significant implication for tectonic is basin configuration which could be controlled by syn-rift fault series. These configurations provide different tectonic style than the previous theories. Discovery of Permian lacustrine sediment also giving us new concepts of Paleozoic petroleum system in West Timor. Permian black shale lacustrine could be a good source rocks which has opportunity to generate hydrocarbon and complete the Paleozoic play or even younger.