Geology of Balakot

The Beautiful city of balakot is my home city. this city has a great history,. it is the biggest subdivision of district Mansehra. its official name is tehsil balakot. it is the one biggest unioncouncil of tehsil balkot & situated at the distance of 40 kilometers from district Mansehra.

Location:
It is the head town of Balakot is located at 3433N 7321E / 34.55N 73.35ECoordinates: 3433N 7321E / 34.55N 73.35E about thirty-eight kilometers north-east of the city of Mansehra, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. It is a historical town, a famous tourist destination of the region and the gateway to Kaghan valley of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan. The river Kunhar, originating from Lulusar lake, runs through the city and merges with Jhelum River just outside Muzaffarabad in Pakistan administered Kashmir.

The quartz, mica schist the agglomeratic slate,the punjab formation andmalakandi formation represent the Balakot area.The balakot gneisses and the bitotite and granet,mica schist further west of balakot apparently represent the Tanol formation of hazara sequence. For the sake of convenience the stratigraphy of balakot has been discussed below under two headings,the stratigraphy east of river Kunhar(comprising sedimentary rock) and the stratigraphy west of river Kunhar(comprising metamorphosed rock).

Stratigraphic sequence east of river Kunhar:

The stratigraphic units exposed in the balakot anticline and Muzaffarabad anticline further south constitute the Muzaffarabad sequence.

Table :

Muzaffarabad Sequence exposed at Balakot.

AGE UNIT

Miocene Eocene Early Eocene - Palaeocene

Murree Formation Margala Hill Limestone

Patala Formation Lockhart Formation Hangu Formation Abbottabad Formation (base not exposed)

Palaeocene Palaeocene Cambrian

These ages have been given on the basis of correlation with units further south in Hazara basin.

Lithology and Stratigraphic Character:

Abbottabad Formation:
The Abbottabad formation in the Balakot area is mainly a dolomite with cherty bands in the upper part and siliceous variety of dolomite with banded in the lower part .The color of the formation is medium grey to grayish brown on the fresh surface and generally light to pale grey ,brown to dark grey on the weathered surface. The chert bands are mostly dark grey. The rock is fairly competent and show a lot of brittle deformation. Minor folding ,at places is well developed and is of concentric type.

Hangu Formation:
The formation consists of quartzite ,sand stone , clay stone ,shale and conglomerate. The quartzite is white to grayish white. The sandstone is generally grey with rusty weathering and some part is conglomeratic. The clay stone are dark grey. Features: At kaghan velly it shows some poorly developed Pisolites. Abbottabad formation with a disconfermable contact with Hangu formation.

Lockhart Formaion:
In the Balakot area the formation mainly consists of grey limestone. The marly parts are particularly fossiliferous. The limestone is fine to meidium grain and the upper part generally break with an irregular surface. Feature: In this upper part irregular joints and calcite veins. The lower contact with Hangu formation is shot to gradational the upper contact with Patala shale is transitional.

Patala Formation:
The Patala shale occur in the form of a number of thin band within the structure of Balakot anticline on the eastern slope of river Kunhar. The main lithology consists of shales ,clay stones and minor silt stones ,thinly laminated and with well developed fissity . Feature: Fossil in shale and clay stone are generally not visible to the naked eyes. The upper contact of patala shale with the Margla Hill Limestone is sharp.

Margala Hill Limestone:

The formation mainly consists of grey Limestone. The limestone is dark grey to light medium grey. Fossils:

It contains most abundant and larger(4mm to 10mm)microfossil. Numerous species of Assilina and Nummulites are seen. The foraminifera are found. The lower contact with Patala shale is sharp but the upper contact with Murree formation is gradational.

Murree Formation:
The Murree formation in the Balakot area consists mainly of maroon shale with green patches and bands ,greenish grey sandstone and generally maroon silt stone. There are subordinate conglomerates and arare band of limestone. Feature: Presence of fracture cleavage , lineation and tension gashes. Veins of calcite and quartz are also present. The upper contact of Murree formation is not exposed in this area.

GEOLOGY OF MANSEHRA:
The area between Batgram and Allai constitutes the Northern Hazara or the manshera block. This area is the domain of the pre Cambrian pelitespsammites of Tanawal formation intruded by the cordierite ,Biotite Cambrain Mansehra Granite .The generally greenschist facies bacrovian metamorphism increase NorthWests to amphibolites facies .the strike is accurate giving tne area an arcuatet structure with the Western flank of Hazara Kashmir Syntaxis on the east the Thakot fault along the Indus on the West. Precambrian meta-morphism in the Manshera area has been documented by baig etal.1988 and discussed by chaudhry et al (1889).The age of Tanawal formation has been below .many hamalayan workers have tended to place the MCT either as the Panjal thrust or as some other thrust north of Panjal thrust implying a classification of manshera area in the higher Himalaya .However more then one line of evidence including stratigraphic. magmatic .Metamorphic and deformational tend to indicate that Mansehara block is the part of lesser Himalaya.

TANAWAL FORMATION:

The unfossliferious ,generally low grade pelitic-psammitic Tanawal formation ,has been one of the most controversial formations of lesser hamalaya.following points are worth mentioning in this regards .The original name of Tnanawal formation is Tanol fm.The name was first given by wynne (1879)to a sequence of meta morphosed pelitic-psammitic occurring mainly in Manshera ,oghi and Terbella sawabi area.Later the name of this fm was given by wadia(1928)to a formation from Kashmir of carboniferous age.Calkin et al (1975) named yhis fm Tanawal .And bring this name on Topographic map. Tanawal formation has always been consider then like Hazara slate formation since the work of Wynne(1879) .Middle miss (1896) also distinguish the tanol quartzite of hazara as the lower part of this infra triass series now known as Abbottabad.Ali(1962) draw the map of east and north east of tarbella in which show the Tanaki boulder bed.now dated as Cambrian overlaying the metamorphism were shown the overlie Hazara sate.The sequence astablished that the TANAWAL were younger then hazara slate.such an order of superposition for unfossliferious formation ,however .raises important question .First if Tanawal fm of northern hazara is younger then Hazara slate Why does it not appear between the Precambrian Hazara and the Cambrian Abbottabad formation anywhere in the Hazara trough south of the Panjal thrust .Second hoe is it that the sequence overlaying the Hazara slate are less

metamorphosed .Finally .why is the Cambrian Manshera granite intruding the so called over laying Tanol but not yhe underlaying hazara slates???..... These facts suggested that the tanawal formation is in fact older and not younger than the hazara slate .The tanawal and Hazara formation are for the most par .very similar in lithology and even the metamorphism can actually be seen to gradually increase strutually upward towards north on the Abbottabd _Manshera road.there fore the lower part of hazara slate has been interpreted as the tanawal formation and the separated from it mainly on the basis of a higher metamorphic grade .A Precambrian age for Tanawal of Manshera area is no longer disputed. However their relationship with Hazara ,Manki and Attock slates is still confused.At present the practice is to regards low grade pelite psammitesequence as slates and the relatively higher grades as Tanawals, both in northern hazara and the Peshawar basin; and consider the relatively higher grade sequence younger then the slates.