Shagala Formation

This unit (highlighted) within its province column; faded ends continue above and below. Line style marks the contact type.

An Eocene sandstone-and-shale molasse of the Zhob area, shed from the rising Indus Suture.

Shagala Formation is named after the militia post of Shagala about 50Km southwest of Zhob (39A/16). It consists of sandstone and shale but at places conglomerate and limestone. The sandstone is fine to coarse grained, gritty, thin to thick bedded, grey to greenish grey, brown and weathers light grey, brown, rusty with patches of black desert varnish on its surface. In the central and eastern part of Kaker Khurasan range the sandstone is more coarsely grained and thick bedded than western part. It shows the source from the Indus Suture, however the western part may have northern and northwestern source. Some sandstone is pebbly, red and maroon. Cross bedded and ripple marks are common. The shale is maroon, red ochre type, grey, greenish grey and calcareous. The red and maroon color is dominant in the Kaker Khurasan area while grey to greenish grey shale color is dominate in the southern Balochistan basin. It is 3000m thick and only exposed in the northern Balochistan Basin (Kakar-Khorasan range). This formation shows the continental (Molasse) conditions in the Kaker Khurasan range. Continental vertebrate bones of rhinoceros, horses, crocodiles, wood fossils, etc (Malkani et al. 2013; Malkani 2014f) are also found in the Kaker Khurasan areas. Recently Malkani et al. (2013) found a baluchithere Pakitherium shagalai with his baby. Pakitherium shagalai Malkani et al. 2013 --a ba

Significance. An Eocene sandstone-shale (molasse-flysch) unit of the Kakar-Khurasan basin, recording uplift and clastic shedding from the Indus Suture to the east.

Fossils

Provinces

• Malkani, M.S. & Mahmood, Z. (2017). Stratigraphy of Pakistan. Geological Survey of Pakistan, Memoir Vol. 24.

Reviewer confidence: medium