Classic ophiolites, as exemplified by the Troodos Massif in Cyprus and the Papuan Ultramafic Belt in eastern New Guinea, are large overthrust masses which are generally associated with large positive gravity anomalies. However, similar rocks occurring in extensive fragmented terranes which have also been described as ophiolitic do not produce large gravity effects. The eastern part of the island of Halmahera, in northeastern Indonesia, is an ophiolite of this latter type. On the two eastern arms of the island, a Mesozoic ophiolitic basement is overlain by, and imbricated with, Upper Cretaceous and Paleogene arc volcanic and sedimentary rocks. Bouguer gravity values are generally in the range +50 to +150 mGal and are characterised by steep local gradients indicative of shallow sources. The Bouguer gravity average suggests that the crust is at least 20 km thick, and it must be even thicker if a significant part of the anomalous gravity field is due to the presence of a cold and therefore dense, lithospheric slab within the asthenosphere, associated with the present‐day subduction beneath Halmahera. The absence of any exposures of continental basement rocks or of quartzose sediments in eastern Halmahera suggests that these ophiolites have not been overthrust onto continental crust and that the thickening occurred in an intraoceanic island arc. The Paleogene arc was evidently characterised by volcanism occurring over an unusually wide area. In this it resembles the Izu‐Bonin volcanic arc, which, like Halmahera, has been situated at the margin of the Philippine Sea Plate throughout its history. The gravity field of the Halmahera ophiolite is comparable with that of the Bonin volcanic arc, but there is no Halmahera parallel to the very high gravity fields recorded over the Bonin Islands forearc ridge. The equivalents of this part of the Paleogene arc may be represented by the ophiolitic complexes now distributed along the northern margin of the orogenic belt in New Gui