Paleozoic • Ordovician–Silurian group In GSP lexicon

Baroghil Group

Ordovician–Silurian

Karakoram-Hindukush Basin · Central Karakoram Batholith

Cited in 8 sources Last reviewed Jul 30, 2026

Unit summary

Rank: group
Status: Published
Age: Paleozoic · Ordovician–SilurianOrdovician–Silurian
Named by: Tahirkheli (1982)
Type locality: Baroghil Pass, Yarkhun valley, Chitral district36.8843°N, 73.3529°E
Thickness: Not recorded
Lithology: Basal chert-rich conglomerate and arkosic sandstone with brachiopods, overlain by slate with metadolomite and quartzite.
Synonyms: Not recorded

An Ordovician–Silurian sequence (the Yarkhun and Vidiakot formations) above the Ishkarwaz Granite at Baroghil Pass.

Baroghil group was named by Tahirkheli (1982) after the Baroghil pass, exposed in the Yarkhun valley, and south of Baroghil pass in Chitral district. Talent et al. (1999) have divided it into lower Yarkhun formation and upper Vidiakot formation.

Fossils

Acritarchs Conodonts Brachiopods

Contacts

In the Hindukush-Chitral column

MetamorphicMixedSandstoneShale / mudFossils recordedContact not recorded

Band colour = period; texture = dominant rock type. Lines between bands mark the contact type; dotted = no contact recorded in the sources (not a claim of conformity). 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.

Constituent units

Formations that make up this group, in stratigraphic order (youngest at top, as in the column).

Distribution & setting

Hindukush-Chitral

Basin: Karakoram-Hindukush Basin
Region: Central Karakoram Batholith
Depositional environment: marine
Coordinates: 36.8843°N, 73.3529°E

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Correlation

Not recorded. Compare this unit against other basins on the correlation panel →

Economic significance

Not recorded

Remarks

The lower Paleozoic platform sequence (Ordovician–Silurian) that unconformably overlies the pre-Ordovician Ishkarwaz Granite south of the Baroghil Pass; it is divided into the lower Yarkhun Formation and the upper Vidiakot Formation (Talent et al., 1999) and carries Early Ordovician acritarchs and Middle–Late Ordovician conodonts. It is overlain with angular unconformity by the Devonian Chilmarabad Formation.

Research notes (4)

Field-by-field findings drawn from the cited literature. Every statement is traced to a registered source — follow a citation for the full reference.

Name & nomenclature (1)

Attested in Shah (2009), Geological Survey of Pakistan Memoir 22 - the Stratigraphic Committee of Pakistan's compiled lexicon (listed in the memoir's contents). Adds the definitional GSP/SCP lexicon citation.

Shah, S.M.I. (2009)

Age & correlation (3)

Zanchi & Gaetani (2011): the Baroghil Group (Ordovician–Silurian) comprises two formations — the Yarkhun Formation (Arenig, below) and the Vidiakot Formation (Arenig–Llanvirn to ?Silurian, above). Its lower formation rests with a preserved basal non-conformity on the pre-Ordovician Karakoram crystalline basement; the mechanically weak Ordovician slates act as the detachment level from which many floor thrusts propagate.

Zanchi, A. & Gaetani, M. (2011)
Gaetani et al. (1996) introduced the 'Baroghil unit' as the most complete upper-crustal section of the Karakorum: a crystalline basement intruded by granite and transgressed by more than 4 km of sedimentary rocks ranging in age from Ordovician to Jurassic, forming a south-thrust north-dipping monocline; the measured section along the Baroghil ridge slightly exceeds 1000 m. The Baroghil Group as recorded here corresponds to the lower (Ordovician-Silurian) part of that succession.

Gaetani, M., Le Fort, P., Tanoli, S., Angiolini, L., Nicora, A., Sciunnach, D. & Khan, A. (1996)
Gaetani (1997): the Karakorum Block succession opens with an Early Ordovician marine transgression onto the crystalline basement, a muddy-shelf environment persisting through the Ordovician; the Ordovician-Silurian mostly shaly succession is ~1 km thick with rare carbonate intercalations. Corroborates the Ordovician-Silurian age and gives a thickness scale for the Baroghil succession.

Gaetani, M. (1997)

Sources (7)

Talent, J. A. et al. (1999). Lower Palaeozoic of the Baroghil, Chitral; Yarkhun (Silurian) and Vidiakot (Ordovician) formations.
Malkani, M. S. & Mahmood, Z. (2017). Stratigraphy of Pakistan. Memoir of the Geological Survey of Pakistan, Vol. 24.
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.
OpenStreetMap contributors and GEOnet Names Server (public geographic gazetteers), used to geolocate named GSP type localities to approximate decimal coordinates.
Shah, S.M.I. (2009). Stratigraphy of Pakistan. Geological Survey of Pakistan, Memoir Vol. 22.
Zanchi, A. & Gaetani, M. (2011). The geology of the Karakoram range, Pakistan: the new 1:100,000 geological map of Central-Western Karakoram. Italian Journal of Geosciences, 130(2), 161-262.

Reviewer confidence: high

Every fact on this page is source-cited. This entry is part of the peer-archived Pakistan Stratigraphy Dataset (doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21363991, CC‑BY‑4.0).

Lexicon status: Name attested in the Shah (1977/2009) Geological Survey of Pakistan compilation — the national stratigraphic lexicon. This records where the name is documented; it is not an endorsement of the unit’s definition, age or figures.

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Cite this unit

APA

Qudsi, L. (2026). Baroghil Group. In Pakistan Stratigraphy Dataset [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21363991

BibTeX

@misc{stratigraphypk_baroghilgroup,
  author    = {Qudsi, Lareb},
  title     = {{Baroghil Group} --- Pakistan Stratigraphy Dataset},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.21363991},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21363991}
}

Archived dataset: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21363991 (CC‑BY‑4.0) · Direct link to this entry: https://stratigraphy.pk/formation/baroghil-group (accessed October 29, 2026).

To cite the unit's original definition instead, see: Tahirkheli (1982).

Above · younger

Chilmarabad Formation

Devonian