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Pakistan Stratigraphy
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Paleozoic • Devonian

Nowshera Formation

Middle Ordovician to Silurian

Devonian in the time scale →

Stratigraphic position

In the Hazara Basin column
LimestoneMetamorphicFossils recordedConformableUnconformity

Band colour = period; texture = dominant rock type. Lines between bands mark the contact type (wavy = unconformity inferred from a missing period). 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.

An Early Devonian coral-stromatoporoid reef complex at Nowshera, above the Panjpir Formation.

Exposed in Nowshera area. Contains conodonts and brachiopods indicating Ordovician-Silurian age.

Significance. An Early Devonian reef complex at Nowshera, conformably overlying the Late Silurian Panjpir Formation; as redefined by Pogue and Hussain (1986) it includes a lower fossiliferous limestone/dolomite, a middle carbonate-cemented sandstone (the Misri Banda Quartzite of Stauffer) and an upper limestone/dolomite (the Pir Sabak Formation). Conodonts indicate an Early Devonian age.

Lithology
Reef limestone rich in corals and stromatoporoids, surrounded by brecciated reef limestone and sparsely fossiliferous dolomite, with a middle carbonate-cemented sandstone unit.
Thickness
595 m
Type locality
3.5 km north of Nowshera
Environment
marine, reef
Introduced by
Stauffer (1968); redefined by Pogue and Hussain (1986)

Fossils

coralsstromatoporoidscephalopodsgastropodsbrachiopodsconodonts

Provinces

References

  • Malkani, M.S. & Mahmood, Z. (2017). Stratigraphy of Pakistan. Geological Survey of Pakistan, Memoir Vol. 24.
  • Kazmi, A.H. & Jan, M.Q. (1997). Geology and Tectonics of Pakistan. Graphic Publishers, Karachi.

Reviewer confidence: medium

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