PRESENTATION ON MAGMATISM STAGES IN PAKISTAN

COMPILED BY
WASEEM KHAN

DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY

UNIVERSITY OF HARIPUR
JANUARY, 2016
 Magmatism Definition

1:- molten material beneath or within the earth's crust, from

which igneous rock is formed.
OR
2:- The formation of igneous rock by the solidification of magma.
 Magmatism

 Pakistan contains a good record of magmatic rocks ranging from Early Proterozoic to Quaternary and
almost all types of common igneous rocks have now been recognized.
 In broad terms, most of the igneous rocks of Pakistan can be divided into three major paleo
geographic regimes:
(1) Pre-Jurassic, related to various orogenic, crustal thinning and rifting processes in the
Gondwanaland
(2) Late Mesozoic, associated with spreading and hot spot processes, and
(3) Cretaceous to Quaternary, related to convergent processes in the Tethys and at the edge of the
"Asiatic" continent.
 The Precambrian magmatic rocks of Pakistan can be divided into two groups :
(1) Early Proterozoic granitic rocks with minor amphibolite, in the Himalayan region, which are
probably an extension of those of the Indian and Nepal Himalayas.
(2) Late Proterozoic bimodal magmatic rocks in northern Punjab and southeastern Sindh, the latter
being an extension of those of Rajasthan; and ultrapotassic volcanic in the Salt Range. During Early
Paleozoic, several granitic plutons were emplaced in the Himalayan foothills.
 Magmatism

 Late Paleozoic rifting in the northwestern edge of the Indian plate ..-resulted in
generally bimodal basic and acid (with some alkaline) magmatism in Kashmir,
Hazara and Peshawar region.
 There are Jurassic-Cretaceous alkaline plutonic and volcanic rocks in
Baluchistan which have been related to intraplate magmatism.
 LATE ARCHEAN TO EARLY PROTEROZOIC

 Igneous rocks of this age have recently been reported from the Nanga Parbat-Haramosh Massif
(NPHM) and Besham area in northern Pakistan.
Nanga Parbat-Haramosh Massif

 The N-S extending NPHM was considered as a promontory (Wadia 1933) or edge of a west-facing
embayment (Madin et a1. 1989) of the Indian plate.
 The northern part of the massif forms a N-S trending antiform.
 The Indus Suture, along which rocks of the Cretaceous Kohistan magmatic arc
were thrust over the Indian plate during Paleocene, appears to be folded around the NPHM in the
form of a loop (Tahirkheli and Jan 1979).
 There are young, generally undeformed, granitic rocks in the NPHM.
 These are dominantly coarse-grained biotite-muscovite granite pegmatites locally mined for green
tourmaline, aquamarine, topaz, and garnet (Kazmi et al. 1985).
 Tourmaline granite and aplite Occur as
dykes, lensoid bodies, and selvages on the pegmatites (Shams 1983, Madin et al. 1989).
 Very young granitic rocks of Pliocene-Pleistocene age have been reported from the massif. These are
probably related to very rapid uplift, and denudation which has' accelerated over the past 10 m.y. to
a maximum of 7 mm/year (Zeitler 1985, Zeitler and Chamberlain 1991, Zeitler et al. 1993).
 Besham antiform
 A window of Early Proterozoic basement, bounded by steep N-trending faults both on it eastern
and western sides, is exposed in the Besham area to the south of the Indus Suture.
 From oldest to youngest they divide the rocks intofive groups:
1) The Besham Group, which forms the basement sequence, consists of metasediments,
quartzofeldspathic gneisses and sodic quartzo-feldspathic gneisses formed in situ from a sedimentary
protolithof variable composition. The sodic gneisses are the equivalent of previously named Lahor
Granite(Ashraf et al. 1980).
2) Mafic dykes in (1), now forming lenses and concordant layers commonly less than 2 m in width
but reaching up to 50 m. Metamorphosed to epidote-bearing amphibolites, these are tholeiitic and have
island arc geochemical affinities. However, Baig and Snee (1991) reported that some of them
are"basaltic komatiite, locally preserving pillow structures.
3) The third group of rocks consists of cogenetic, small granitic intrusions and associated pegmatites.
4) The Karora Group conglomerate, calcareous and carbonaceous metasediments, which form the
cover sequence and provide evidence for more than one metamorphic event in the area.
5) Undeformed leucogranites intrude both the Karora Group and the Beshpm Group in two places
in the form of small sills, up to 25 m thick.
 LATE PROTEROZOIC

 Kirana Hills
 Some three dozen inliers of Precambrian basement, ranging from a few
hundred square meters to about 20 kms in area, rise above the alluvial
plain of the Punjab to the SE of Sargodha.
 CAMBRIAN-ORDOVICIAN

 The Lesser Himalayan granitic plutons of Lower Ordovician and Cambrian age occur in a belt
stretching for 1,600 km from Kathmandu to the Indus (Le Fort et a1. 1980, 1983). Similar plutons
also occur in the southern margin of the Tibetan slab and in the central mountains of
Afghanistan.
 Similar granitic rocks occur in other parts of the Himalayas of Pakistan, e.g.
Nanga Parbat, Besham, Swat, and Azad Kashmir, all of which are confined to the northern
edge of the Indian plate to the south of the Indus Suture .

Mansehra Granites :-
Covering more than 2,000 km2 area, these granites have been studied in detail by Shams and
associates (1961a, 1966, 1969,1980, 1983).
 They range from granite to granodiorite, are calc-alkaline in chemistry, and composed of
quartz, albite-oligoclase, K-feldspar (orthoclase to microcline, mostly perthitic), biotite and small
quantities of a number of other minerals, including garnet.
Mansehra Granites
 Swat Granitic Gneisses
 these rocks are very similar to those of Mansehra and their 515 Ma Ar-Ar biotite age confirms that the
two are of the same age .
 Like those of Mansehra, they also appear to have been emplaced in a sheet and tightly folded.
 They are composed of quartz, two feldspars, two micas, opaques, epidote, apatite (± garnet) and,
according to Shams (1983 ).
 A younger tourmaline-bearing granite/gneiss is a minor marginal variant of the Swat Granitic Gneisses
(see also Di Pietro 1990). Wollastonite-bearing calc-silicate rocks occur in contact marbles near
Manglaur (Shams 1961b) and Pir Baba.
 Humayun (1985) divided the granitic rocks in Lower Swat into :
 (1) porphyritic calcalkaline granodiorite gneisses with white microline megacrysts,
 (2) equigranular to porphyritic biotite granites of probable alkaline affinity and displaying local rapakivi
texture, and
 (3) equigranular, subsolvus, tourmaline-muscovite granites.
 Azad Kashmir

 Several, relatively small granitic bodies have been reported from Azad Kashmir.
 They are porphyritic, medium- to coarse-grained, and deformed (gneissose)
and undeformed types commonly containing biotite and muscovite.
 Nanga Parbat and Besham
 The two-mica Shingus Gneiss in the Nanga Parbat Massif is a fine-grained, finely-laminated unit
comprising a range of lithologies, but petrographic details are not available to us.
 It has a V-Pb zircon age of 400-500 Ma,and is considered as a metamorphic equivalent of the
Mansehra Granite (Zeitler et a1. 1989).
 In Besham area, there are small granitic intrusions of Cambrian age in the Early Proterozoic
basement.
 these the Shang and Duber bodies with associated pegmatites are worth mentioning.
 These are coarse-grained, with up to a centimeter long feldspar phenocrysts, deformed
(especially on margins),and locally banded.
 They range in composition from granodiorite to adamellite and consist of K feldspar, quartz,
medium plagioclase, hornblende and/or biotite, opaque oxide, and traces of sphene, epidote,
tourmaline, zircon and local garnet.
 Western Karakoram

 In upper Yarkhun Valley of northeastern Chitral, Le Fort et a1. (1994) and Tongiorgi et a1.
(1994)
reported pre-Ordovician granitoids occurring to the north of the Karakoram Axial
Batholith.
 The granite body is 4 to 5 km wide.
 Early Paleozoic granitoids have also been reported from the neighboring region.
 the darkest member of the Bumburet Pluton of Kafiristan in western Chitral (Le Fort et a1.
1994).
 The occurrence of Early Paleozoic granites in the Karakoram Range suggests that the
Karakoram plate is Gondwanic in origin and was probably contiguous to India before
Permian.
 LATE PALEOZOIC - EARLY MESOZOIC

 Based on the occurrence of alkaliae rocks in Warsak, Shewa-Shahbazgarhi (Coulson

1936), Koga (Siddiqui et a1. 1968) and Tarbela, Kempe and Jan (1970) suggested that an alkaline
igneous province stretched across north Pakistan.
 Subsequent geochemical and petrographic data on granitic rocks of Ambela (Ahmad and Ahmed 1974,
Rafiq 1987) and Malakand (Chaudhry et a1.1974), and the discovery of carbonatite complexes in Shilman (Jan
et a1. 1981) and Sillai Patti (Ashraf and Chaudhry 1977) provided further support to the idea that the Peshawar
Plain alkalineigneous province (PAIP) extends for a distance of at least 150 km between the Indus River and
PakAfghan border.
 Field studies summarised in Kempe and Jan (1980) indicate that the alkaline complexes are :
 (1) generally emplaced along fault zones, and
(2) restricted in occurrence to Paleozoic and Precambrian rocks.
 the rocks of the alkaline igneousprovince are associated with Tertiary rifting.
 the total absence of these rocks in the post-Paleozoic sedimentary sequence favour a
Late Paleozoic age for the PAIP.
 The later part of the Paleozoic and beginning of the Mesozoic appears to have been a fertile time
for magma generation in this part of the subcontinent.
PAIP
 PAIP
 The Peshawar Plain Alkaline Igneous Province (PAIP) Of the three groups of rocks :
 1. Loe ShUman, Khyber Agency
 2. Warsak
 3. Sillai Patti
 4. Malakand
 5. Shewa-Shah bazgarhi
 6. Ambela Granitic Complex (AGe)
 7. Tarbela
The Peshawar-Hazara-Kashmir dolerites

 Between the Indus Suture and the Main Boundary Thrust (MBT), there are
numerous dolerite bodies in the Precambrian to Paleozoic rocks of NWFP and
Kashmir.
 Notable occurrences are those of the Attock-Cherat Range (Wadia 1931,
Tahirkheli 1970), Khyber Agency (Khan et aI., 1970, Shah et al. 1980), Hazara
(Shams and Ahmed 1968, Calkins et ai. 1975), and Kashmir (Wadia 1961, Pascoe
1949).
 JURASSIC - CRETACEOUS

 The northeastern part of Balochistan shows several occurrences of alkaline rocks

of Early Jurassic to Late Cretaceous age.
 These constitute some 130 km long belt trending NE-SW between Zhob and NE
of Quetta.
 Include the name of area only because not the part of presentation :
 1: Alkalic rocks of Spangar-Kozh Kach area.
2: Porali suite
3: Pir Umar Basalts
4: "Twin Sisters" soda dolerite, Muslimbagh.

 CRETACEOUS - TERTIARY

 belong ophiolitic complexes, commonly thought of as traces of plate boundaries.

 magmatism in Sindh, the Chagai arc, Kohistan arcs and Karakoram-Hindu Kush region.
OPHIOLITES :
 1) Ras Koh Range : The Ras Koh Range of west-central Baluchistan is a tectonic block lying to the south of the Chagai
magmatic arc and to the west of the Cham an Transform Fault. The range is an E-W to NES~ trending anticlinorium both
limbs of which are complicated by numerous folds and faults that trend generally in NE-SW direction.
 2) The Bela-Zhob-Waziristan Suture Ophiolites
1. Bela Ophiolite : Ultramafic rock, Mafic to silicic plutonic rock, Dolerite dykes, Volcanic rocks
2. Zhob Valley Ophiolites :
3. Waziristan Ophiolite :
 3) The Indus Suture 0 phiolites
1. Bajaur-Utmankhel:
2. Skhakot-Qila Ophiolite Complex:
3. Mingora-Shangla 0 phiolite Melange:
4. Allai Ophiolitic Melange:
5. Allai Ophiolitic Melange:
6. Burzil Pass-Dras Ophiolitic Melange
 3) The Indus Suture 0phiolites :
1. Bajaur-Utmankhel:
2. Skhakot-Qila Ophiolite Complex:
3. Mingora-Shangla 0 phiolite Melange:
4. Allai Ophiolitic Melange:
5. Allai Ophiolitic Melange:
6. Burzil Pass-Dras Ophiolitic Melange