The Papua-New Guinea, Solomon, New Hebrides and New Caledonia ophiolitic massifs come from an Eocene intra-oceanic subduction occurring in the southwest Pacific. This hypothesis is suggested by the age of the ophiolite-related metamorphic soles which would be the result of a metamorphism arising at the expense of volcanic and sedimentary series of oceanic supracrustal origin when involved in a subduction zone. When this subduction also involves a continental crust portion, amphibolites and blue schists are formed, as observed in Papua-New Guinea and New Caledonia. When the subduction occurs in an intra-oceanic environment, as in the Solomon islands and New Hebrides, only amphibolites and green schists are to be found. The ophiolitic belt (basic-ultrabasic massifs and their related metamorphic soles) created by the Eocene subduction has been disrupted by later transcurrent faults, more recent spreading phenomena and two other subductions (Oligocene-Miocene and Recent ).