Articles
Articles
Plain-language, in-depth pieces on the geology of Pakistan — the big picture behind the formations, provinces and fossils catalogued across the rest of the site. Write for us →
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Featured Stratigraphy of Pakistan: An Introduction to the Country’s Rock Record
Rank Ready 6 min readA clear, in-depth introduction to the stratigraphy of Pakistan — its plate-tectonic setting, the Indus Basin, the Salt Range, world-famous Siwalik and Eocene fossils, and the formations behind its oil, gas and coal.
- Overview
- Regional geology
- Beginner
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Reading the Rocks: A Tribute to the Geologists of Pakistan
Rank Ready 6 min readAn appreciation of the people — Pakistani and foreign alike — who mapped, named and dated the rocks of Pakistan: from nineteenth-century surveyors like Wynne, Blanford and Waagen and Salt Range pioneers like E.R. Gee, to the Kohistan-arc geologists, the fossil hunters of the Siwaliks and Eocene whales, and the modern compilers of the national record.
- People
- History
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Rocks That Power a Nation: The Economic Geology of Pakistan
Rank Ready 3 min readHow Pakistan's stratigraphy underpins its economy — Eocene limestone gas reservoirs like Sui, the vast Thar lignite field, the ancient rock salt of Khewra, and the copper–gold of the Chagai arc.
- Economic geology
- Resources
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A Miocene Safari: The Siwalik Mammals of the Potwar
Rank Ready 3 min readThe Siwalik Group of the Potwar Plateau holds one of the richest fossil-mammal records on Earth — elephants, giraffes, rhinos, three-toed horses and the early ape Sivapithecus, all laid down by rivers draining the young Himalaya.
- Fossils
- Palaeontology
- Neogene
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Whales With Legs: The Eocene Origin of Cetaceans in Pakistan
Rank Ready 2 min readHow the Eocene rocks of Pakistan captured one of evolution's greatest transitions — the return of mammals to the sea — in fossils like Pakicetus, Ambulocetus and Rodhocetus.
- Fossils
- Palaeontology
- Eocene
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The Salt Range: A Billion Years in One Hillside
Rank Ready 3 min readWhy the Salt Range of northern Punjab is Pakistan's classic geological locality — an almost complete rock sequence from Precambrian salt to the young sediments of the Himalayan foreland, all exposed in one narrow band of hills.
- Regional geology
- Salt Range
- Classic locality
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Telling Time With Fossils: Biostratigraphy and Biozones of Pakistan
Rank Ready 3 min readHow fossils date and correlate Pakistan's rocks — from Triassic ceratite ammonoids in the Salt Range and Palaeozoic conodonts of the Karakoram to Eocene larger-foraminifer zones and Siwalik mammal biochronology.
- Concepts
- Palaeontology
- Biostratigraphy
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One Chart for All of Time: International Stratigraphy and Pakistan's Place in It
Rank Ready 3 min readHow the global geological timescale is built — chronostratigraphy, stages, GSSP 'golden spikes' and the ICS International Chronostratigraphic Chart — and where Pakistan's sections, such as the Salt Range Permian–Triassic boundary, fit into it.
- Concepts
- Stratigraphy 101
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The India–Asia Collision: How Pakistan's Mountains Were Built
Rank Ready 3 min readThe plate-tectonic story behind Pakistan's geology — the breakup of Gondwana, India's long drift north, the closing of Tethys, and the collision with Asia that raised the Himalaya, Karakoram and the fold belts.
- Tectonics
- Regional geology
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How a Formation Gets Its Name
Rank Ready 3 min readA plain-language guide to lithostratigraphic nomenclature — what a formation, member, group and bed actually are, how they are defined at a type locality, and how the names are governed and revised.
- Concepts
- Stratigraphy 101
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Ice at the Edge of the World: The Permian Glaciation in the Tobra Formation
Rank Ready 2 min readThe Tobra Formation of the Salt Range records a time when the land that is now Pakistan lay near the South Pole and was buried under ice — Pakistan's chapter in the great Late Palaeozoic glaciation of Gondwana.
- Palaeoclimate
- Permian
- Salt Range
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Reading Unconformities: The Gaps in the Record
Rank Ready 3 min readAn unconformity is missing time — a surface where rock was eroded or never deposited. A guide to the kinds of unconformity, how to recognise them, and why the gaps in Pakistan's rock record are as informative as the layers themselves.
- Concepts
- Stratigraphy 101