Tectonic Geomorphology Between Thakot and Mansehra, Northern Pakistan
Abstract
Geomorphic features between Thakot and Mansehra include (1) bedrock terraces and an associated knickpoint on Nundihar Khwnr, an Indus tributary, (2) deeply weathered residual soils on n relict upland surface called the Chattar plain, (3) an escarpment developed at the edge of headward erosion into this upland surface, and (4) an incised intermontane sedimentary basin north of Mansehra. Together these features provide new data to be used in reconstructing the history of recent ublift of the Himalaya in Pakistan. They reflect a period of relative tectonic stability during tropical soil development on a surface of rolling hills between about 25 and 5 m.y .ago followed by uplift and erosion of that surface. These residual soils may be an important sediment source for the voung intermontane basins developed in association with foreland thrust fault motion during the last 5 m.y.
References
Burbank, D.W., 1983. The chronology of intermontane-basin development in the northwest Himalaya and the evolution of the northwest syntaxis. Earth Planet. Sci. Letters 64, 77-92.
Burbank, D.W., & Johnson, G.D., 1982. Intermontane-basin development in the past 4 Myr in the north-west Himalaya: Nature 298, 432-436.
Burbank, D.W., & Johnson, G.D., 1983. The late Cenozoic chronologic and stratigraphic development of the Kashmir intermontane basin, northwest Himalaya: Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology 43, 205-235.
Burbank, D.W., & Raynolds, R.G.H., 1984. Sequential late Cenozoic structural disruption of the northern Himalayan foredeep: Nature 311, 114-118.
Calkins, J.A., Offield, T.W., Ablullah, S.K.M. & Tayyab, Ali S., 1975. Geology of the southern Himalaya in Hazara, Pakistan, and adjacent areas. U.S. Geologic1 Survey Prof. Paper 716C, 29 p.
Fernandez, A., 1983. Strain analysis of a typical granite belt: The Mansehra pluton, northern Pakistan. In: Granites of the Himalayas, Karakorum, and Hindu Kush (F.A. Shams, ed.) Inst. Geol. Punjab Univ., Lahore, p. 183-199.
Gornitz, V. & Seeber, L., 1981. Morphotectonic analysis of the Hazara arc region of the Himalayas, north Pakistan and northwest India. Tectonophysics 74, 263-282.
Johnson, G.D., Johnson, N.M., Opdyke, N.D. & Tahirkheli, R.A.K., 1979. Magnetic reversal stratigraphy and sedimentary tectonic history of the upper Siwalik Group, eastern Salt Range and southwestern Kashmir. In: Geodynamics of Pakistan (A. Farah and K.A. DeJong, eds.) Geol. Surv. Pakistan, p. 149-165.
Kazmi, A.K., Lawrence, R.D., Anwar, J., Snee, L.W. & Hussain, S.S., 1984. Geology of the Indus suture zone in the Mingora-Shangla area of Swat. Geol. Bull. Univ. Peshawar 17, 127-144.
Krishnan, M.S., 1968. Geology of India and Burma, 5th edition. Higginbothams, Ltd., Madras, 536 p.
Le Fort, P., Debron, F. & Sonet, J., 1980. The "Lesser Himalayan" cordierite granite belt: topology and age of the pluton of Mansehra (Pakistan). Geol. Bull. Univ. Peshawar 13, 51-61.
Maluski, H. & Matte, P., 1984. Ages of alpine tectonornetamorphic events in the northwestern Himalaya (northern Pakistan) by 39Ar140Ar method. Tectonics 3, 1-18.
Moosvi, A.T., Haque, S.M. & Muslim, M., 1974. Geology and China clay deposits Shah Dheri (Swat) N.W.F.P. Pakistan. Records Geol. Surv. Pakistan 26, 28 p.
Raynolds, R.G.H., 1981. Did the ancestral Indus flow into the Ganges drainage? Geol. Bull. Univ. Peshawar 14, 141-150.
Seeber, L. & Armbruster, J., 1979. Seismicity of the Hazara arc in northern Pakistan: decollement versus basement faulting: In: Geodynamics of Pakistan (A. Farah and K.A. DeJong, eds.) Geol. Surv. Pakistan, p. 131-142.
Seeber, L. & Gornitz, V., 1983. River profiles along the Himalayan arc as indicators of active tectonics. Tectonophysics 92, 335-367.
Shams, F.A., 1969. Geology of the Mansehra-Amb state area, Northern West Pakistan. Geol. Bull. Punjab Univ. 8, 1-31.
Shams, F.A., 1983. Granites of the NW Himalaya in Pakistan. In: Granites of the Himalaya, Karakorum and Hindu Kush (F.A. Shams, ed.) Inst. Geol. Punjab Univ., Lahore, p. 75-121.
Shroder, J.F., Jr., 1973. Erosional remnants near the Rift edge in Malawi. Zeit. Geornorph. S. 18, p. 121-143.
Shroder, J.F., Jr., 1976. Mass movement on Nyika Plateau, Malawi. Zeit. Geomorph., B. 2, p. 56-77.
Wadia, D.N., 1975. Geology of India, 4th edition. Tata-McGraw Hill, New Delhi, 508 p.
Yeats, R.S. & Lawrence, R.D., 1984. Tectonics of the Himalayan thrust belt in northern Pakistan. In: Marine Geology and Oceanography of Arabian Sea and Coastal Pakistan (B.U. Haq and J.D. Milliman, eds.) Van Nostrand Reinhold, p. 177-198.
Zeitler, P.K., Tahirkheli, R.A.K., Naeser, C.W. & Johnson, N.M., 1982. Unroofing history of a suture zone in the Himalaya of Pakistan by means of fission-track annealing ages. Earth Planet. Sci. Letters 57, 227-240.
