Bulletin of the Geological Society of Malaysia, Volume 44, July 2000, pp. 159 – 163

Age and emplacement of the Mount Kinabalu pluton

¹David A. Swauger, ²Charles S. Hutchison, ¹Steven C. Bergman and ¹John E. Graves

¹Arco International Oil and Gas Company and Arco Exploration & Production Technology, 2300 W. Plano Pkwy., Plano, Texas 75075-8499, U.S.A.

²10 Lorong 5/19A, 46000 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract: K-Ar and fission track dating indicate that Mount Kinabalu, the highest point of the Western Cordillera of Sabah, was intruded in the Middle Miocene (10 to 13.7 Ma) and exhumed in the Late Miocene (6.7 to 7.8 Ma). These igneous and uplift events are closely reflected in major unconformities documented offshore in the oilfields, and collectively known as the Sabah Orogeny. A tectonic model is presented, which relates the emplacement and uplift to Oligocene southeastwards subduction under dragging of the Dangerous Grounds terrane of the South China Sea, followed by Miocene isostatic rebound.

https://doi.org/10.7186/bgsm44200020