Salt Range Formation
Late Precambrian (Ediacaran)
Ediacaran in the time scale →Cited in 11 sources Last reviewed Aug 20, 2026
- Rank
- Not recorded
- Status
- Published
- Age
- Precambrian · Ediacaran · EdiacaranLate Precambrian (Ediacaran)
- Named by
- Asrarullah (1967)
- Type locality
- Khewra, Salt Range, Punjab32.6486°N, 73.0111°E
- Thickness
- 800-1500 m
- Lithology
- Rock salt (Billianwala Salt Member), gypsum (Bandar Kas Gypsum Member), marl (Sahwal Marl Member)
- Synonyms
- Punjab Saline Series; Saline Series
The oldest rocks exposed in the Salt Range: a thick Ediacaran sequence of rock salt, gypsum and marl formed when a restricted, evaporating sea dried out. It hosts the world-famous Khewra salt mine.
The oldest exposed formation in the Salt Range, consisting of evaporites deposited in a restricted marine environment. Contains the world-famous Khewra Salt Mine, second largest in the world. Includes Sahwal Marl Member, Bandar Kas Gypsum Member, and Billianwala Salt Member.
Fossils
Contacts
Band colour = period; texture = dominant rock type. Lines between bands mark the contact type. True scale makes height ∝ recorded thickness; hatched = thickness not recorded. Ages approximate, for ordering.
This unit (highlighted) within its province column; faded ends continue above and below. Line style marks the contact type.
Distribution & setting
- Basin
- Not recorded
- Region
- Not recorded
- Depositional environment
- restricted marine, evaporitic
- Coordinates
- 32.6486°N, 73.0111°E
See it in the field
Geoheritage sites where this unit is exposed at outcrop.
Correlation
Not recorded. Compare this unit against other basins on the correlation panel →
Economic significance
Major source of rock salt (Khewra Salt Mine), gypsum, and potential oil shales
Remarks
A late Neoproterozoic (Ediacaran) evaporite succession deposited under arid, restricted-marine conditions on the northwestern margin of the Indian Plate; geochemistry indicates felsic to intermediate source terrains. It forms the basal detachment of the Salt Range thrust belt and is the region's economic salt source.
Research notes (8)
Field-by-field findings drawn from the cited literature. Every statement is traced to a registered source — follow a citation for the full reference.
Age & correlation (1)
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Kazmi & Jan (1997): the Salt Range Formation is Late Proterozoic (sulphur-isotope data on top gypsum give ~600 Ma) — >800 m (base not exposed; locally >2,000 m in the Kohat-Potwar foredeep by salt migration) of red gypsiferous 'salt marl' claystone with thick salt bodies, a middle gypsum-dolomite-shale-oil-shale interval and a top gypsum with the Khewra Trap; deposited in a restricted shallow-marine evaporitic setting on Indian-shield basement, overlain by the Khewra Sandstone. Type locality Khewra Gorge; devoid of fossils.
Kazmi, A.H. & Jan, M.Q. (1997)
Thickness (2)
-
Type-section thickness (Shah, 2009): >830 m at Khewra Gorge; >2000 m at Dhariala (drilling). Type locality: Khewra Gorge, Salt Range. Recorded from the GSP lexicon (Memoir 22); the existing thickness field is retained.
Shah, S.M.I. (2009)
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Gee (1989): the saliferous Salt Range Formation is of uncertain but probably ~1,000 m thickness. In the Karampur borehole (about 29 deg 59 min N, 72 deg 22 min E; 280 km south of the range) it is ~900 m thick and directly overlies an igneous-metamorphic Precambrian basement at ~2,100 m depth — a sequence comparable to the Salt Range.
Economic significance (2)
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Jamil & Sheikh (2012): beyond its rock-salt and gypsum resources, the Eocambrian/Neoproterozoic Salt Range Formation and correlative Punjab-Platform/Potwar strata are an under-explored hydrocarbon play — Neoproterozoic rocks have been penetrated by ~40 wells in Pakistan and are argued to offer a complete petroleum system (source, reservoir and seal), by analogy with the productive Infracambrian of Oman and the Lena–Tunguska province.
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Craig et al. (2018): the Salt Range Formation is a proven 'Infra-Cambrian' source rock. Brown bituminous shales, oil shales and bituminous dolomites near its top (Eastern Salt Range, up to ~5 m thick; Gee 1989) carry Type II kerogen with TOC up to ~30 wt.% (locally up to 47.8 wt.% in the Dulmial-1 core) and HI up to 879 mgHC/gTOC (Ahmad & Alam 2007, 91 outcrop/core samples). The facies are thin and laterally inconsistent and are immature in the Eastern Salt Range, but where deeply buried in the Potwar Basin (generation from ~Late Cretaceous) they charge stacked Cambrian-Eocene fractured-carbonate reservoirs; oil in Karampur-1 is Salt Range-derived and geochemically resembles Baghewala (India) and Oman Infra-Cambrian oils. Jadoon et al. (2015) treat it as a frontier play with ~290 MMBO original recoverable reserves.
Geological significance (3)
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Gee (1989): the Eocambrian Salt Range Formation (formerly the 'Punjab Saline Series') is the incompetent detachment horizon on which the whole overlying pile was thrust southward — a decollement determined by seismic reflection to involve at least 20 km of displacement. Its top gypsiferous stage locally carries the 'Khewra Trap', a much-weathered lava flow, in the eastern part of the range. It correlates with certain Vindhyan formations of NW India (Gee 1945).
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Craig et al. (2018): the Salt Range Formation evaporites (halite, gypsum, marl, dolomite) form the primary regional top-seal and, critically, the basal decollement of the Salt Range-Potwar fold-and-thrust belt, decoupling the Phanerozoic cover from Precambrian basement. The basal detachment steps ~100 km south along the formation, transporting the hangingwall ~20 km south with little internal deformation, and is assumed to pinch out near the northern Potwar boundary - a fundamental control on trap geometry and prospectivity.
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Farooqui et al. (2019), full text: geochemistry of the clastic fraction of the late Neoproterozoic (Ediacaran) Salt Range Formation classifies the sandstones/shales as arkose, subarkose and litharenite sourced from felsic and/or intermediate igneous rocks (felsic island arc, with minor andesitic-arc and older passive-margin input). The detritus was deposited in fluvial to restricted-shelf conditions under an arid to semi-arid, oxygenated palaeoclimate — consistent with the recorded arid, restricted-marine evaporite setting.
Farooqui, M.A., Umar, M., Sabir, M.A., Pervez, R. & Jalees, T. (2019)
Sources (11)
- Malkani, M.S. & Mahmood, Z. (2017). Stratigraphy of Pakistan. Geological Survey of Pakistan, Memoir Vol. 24.
- OpenStreetMap contributors and GEOnet Names Server (public geographic gazetteers), used to geolocate named GSP type localities to approximate decimal coordinates.
- Shah, S.M.I. (1977). Stratigraphy of Pakistan. Geological Survey of Pakistan, Memoir Vol. 12.
- Farooqui, M.A., Umar, M., Sabir, M.A., Pervez, R. & Jalees, T. (2019). Geochemical attributes of late Neoproterozoic Salt Range Formation, Pakistan: constraints on provenance, paleoclimate, depositional and tectonic settings. Geosciences Journal, 23(2), 201-218.
- Indian Plate Lexicon (indplex.geolex.org), Geological Society of India and international compilation.
- Shah, S.M.I. (2009). Stratigraphy of Pakistan. Geological Survey of Pakistan, Memoir Vol. 22.
- Kazmi, A.H. & Jan, M.Q. (1997). Geology and Tectonics of Pakistan. Graphic Publishers, Karachi.
- Kazmi, A.H. & Abbasi, I.A. (2008). Stratigraphy and Historical Geology of Pakistan. Department & National Centre of Excellence in Geology, University of Peshawar, Peshawar. 524 pp. ISBN 978-969-9119.
- Gee, E.R. (edited by Gee, D.G.) (1989). Overview of the geology and structure of the Salt Range, with observations on related areas of northern Pakistan. In: Malinconico, L.L. & Lillie, R.J. (eds) Tectonics of the Western Himalayas. Geological Society of America Special Paper 232, 95-112.
- Jamil, A. & Sheikh, R.A. (2012). An overview of Neoproterozoic reservoirs in Pakistan. In: Bhat, G.M., Craig, J., Thurow, J.W. et al. (eds) Geology and Hydrocarbon Potential of Neoproterozoic–Cambrian Basins in Asia. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 366, 111-121.
- Craig, J., Hakhoo, N., Bhat, G.M., Hafiz, M., Khan, M.R., Misra, R., Pandita, S.K., Raina, B.K., Thurow, J., Thusu, B., Ahmed, W. & Khullar, S. (2018). Petroleum systems and hydrocarbon potential of the North-West Himalaya of India and Pakistan. Earth-Science Reviews, 187, 109-185.
Reviewer confidence: high
Every fact on this page is source-cited. This entry is part of the peer-archived Pakistan Stratigraphy Dataset (doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21363991, CC‑BY‑4.0).
Lexicon status: Name attested in the Shah (1977/2009) Geological Survey of Pakistan compilation — the national stratigraphic lexicon. This records where the name is documented; it is not an endorsement of the unit’s definition, age or figures.
Cite this unit
Qudsi, L. (2026). Salt Range Formation. In Pakistan Stratigraphy Dataset [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21363991
@misc{stratigraphypk_saltrangeformation,
author = {Qudsi, Lareb},
title = {{Salt Range Formation} --- Pakistan Stratigraphy Dataset},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Zenodo},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.21363991},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21363991}
} Archived dataset: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21363991 (CC‑BY‑4.0) · Direct link to this entry: https://stratigraphy.pk/formation/salt-range-formation (accessed October 7, 2026).
To cite the unit's original definition instead, see: Asrarullah (1967).
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