OCEANIA (INCLUDING FIJI, PNG AND SOLOMONS) 113 Madang contain economic concentrations of nickel and cobalt and await development Energy Resources Oil currently is produced from several thrust-bounded anticlines containing the Kutubu, Gobe, and Moran oil fields, all of which are in the vicinity of Lake Kutubu in the Southern Highlands Province Production from the South-east Mananda oil field within the giant Mananda structure between the Kutubu oil fields and the Hides gas field is planned The oil was derived from Jurassic black shales and has accumulated in clean, shallow marine quartz sandstones of Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous age At the time of the initial discovery, in the Iagifu anticline, recoverable reserves were estimated at around 200 million barrels of oil By the beginning of 2004, 354 million barrels had been produced from the various fields and remaining recoverable oil reserves stood at 222 million barrels Production, which began in June 1992, has declined from a peak of almost 150 000 barrels dayÀ1 in 1993 to around 50 000 barrels dayÀ1 in 2004 as the fields have been depleted A small part of the large volume of gas in the Hides anticline, south-west of Tari, provides electrical power to the Porgera mine The gas at Hides and in other structures in the foldbelt is sufficient to be developed commercially, provided that a market can be found A pipeline to Queensland, Australia is planned, but the project awaits confirmed markets before detailed engineering and design work and construction can proceed Large volumes of gas also have been discovered offshore in the Gulf of Papua at Pandora on the north-western corner of the Eastern Plateau, about 150 km south-west of Kerema This gas occurs in a deeply buried cavernous Miocene limestone reef Oil and gas seeps are known in the North New Guinea Basin and there are indications of petroleum in the Cape Vogel Basin A pilot program to utilize geothermal energy at the Ladolam Mine on Lihir Island has proved successful and is being expanded This is the first use of geothermal energy in PNG Natural Hazards Papua New Guinea has 14 active and 22 dormant volcanoes and these pose a potential danger to 204 000 people Ten of the fourteen active volcanoes and 12 of the 22 dormant volcanoes are in the Bismarck volcanic arc, from Bam, Manam, Karkar, and Long Island in the west to Langila, Garbuna, Makalia, Pago, Ulawun, and Rabaul in the east Other groupings of active volcanoes are in the Admiralty Islands, on Bougainville Island, and in eastern Papua The agency charged with monitoring the PNG volcanoes is the Rabaul Volcanological Observatory Rabaul volcano erupted in 1937, killing more than 500 people When it erupted again in 1994, only five people were killed, but much of Rabaul town was devastated, leading to a decision to relocate government and most business activity to Kokopo The worst volcanic disaster in historical time was the explosive eruption of Lamington volcano in Oro Province in 1951; 3000 people were killed A major tsunami generated by the collapse of the west flank of Ritter Island volcano in 1888 caused untold loss of life on New Britain and adjacent islands More recently, in 1998, the Aitape tsunami destroyed two villages, damaged other villages, and caused more than 1650 deaths Solomon Islands The central and western Solomon Islands form a double chain on either side of a central trough and are bounded on both flanks by deep-sea trenches (Figure 4) The islands comprise three geological provinces: a north-eastern province of Cretaceous–Paleocene oceanic basalts and pelagic sediments, a central province of more complex geology that includes metamorphic and ultramafic rocks and Oligocene–Miocene arc-related volcanics, and a south-western province of Late Miocene to Quaternary volcanic activity The islands of the north-eastern province are Malaita, the small island of Ulawa, and the north-eastern side of Santa Isabel On these islands, Cretaceous and Paleocene submarine basalts with intercalated pelagic limestone and mudstone are overlain by younger Cenozoic marine sediments that contain terrigenous material The Cretaceous and Paleocene rocks originated as part of the Ontong Java submarine volcanic plateau On Malaita, an intrusion of alnoite, a silica-poor mafic rock, dating to 34 Ma, has attracted interest in the past because of the occurrence of unusual xenoliths, including garnet peridotite The islands of the central province are Choiseul, the south-western side of Santa Isabel, the Florida islands, Guadalcanal, and Makira (San Cristobal) Basement on these islands comprises Cretaceous basalt, greenschist and amphibolite facies, mafic schists, and ultramafic rocks; the metamorphic rocks have radiometric ages around 50 Ma, Early to midEocene Volcanic rocks of Late Eocene(?), Oligocene, and Early Miocene age unconformably overlie the basement rocks, and volcano-related dioritic stocks intrude basement A thick sequence of Miocene to Pliocene clastic sediments covers much of Guadalcanal Island but is not strongly developed on the other islands The south-west province comprises Late Miocene to Holocene arc volcanic rocks and associated