Paleozoic • Devonian formation GSP memoir

Ghundai Sar Formation

Devonian (Gundhai Sar / 'Ali Masjid Group' sequence; ?Early Devonian to late Famennian)

Northern Indus Suture

Devonian in the time scale →

Cited in 4 sources Last reviewed Jul 30, 2026

Unit summary

Rank: formation
Status: Under review
Age: Paleozoic · DevonianDevonian (Gundhai Sar / 'Ali Masjid Group' sequence; ?Early Devonian to late Famennian)
Named by: Not recorded
Type locality: Not recorded
Thickness: Not recorded
Lithology: Not recorded
Synonyms: Not recorded

A poorly characterised formation of the Nowshera/Peshawar Paleozoic area.

Fossils

Tabulate corals (Cladopora, Thamnopora, Favosites)Heliolites Crinoids Conodonts (late Famennian)

Contacts

In the Khyber–Nowshera Belt column

MetamorphicLimestoneMixedFossils 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.

Distribution & setting

Khyber–Nowshera Belt

Basin: Northern Indus Suture
Region: Not recorded
Depositional environment: Not recorded
Coordinates: Not recorded

Correlation

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

Economic significance

Not recorded

Remarks

A formation of the Nowshera/Peshawar Paleozoic area; its lithology and age are not well established in the baseline.

Research notes (2)

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

Age & correlation (1)

Molloy, Talent & Mawson (1997): the Devonian limestones near Gundhai Sar (4–6 km N of Jamrud) form a >1,000 m sequence mapped by Khan (1969, 1970; Khan et al. 1970) as six units of the 'Ali Masjid Group'. Parts have lithologic and macrofaunal similarities to the Early Devonian (Lochkovian–?Pragian) Nowshera Limestone — an abundance of the twig-like tabulate coral Cladopora plus Thamnopora, Favosites and Heliolites — and the authors suggest the entire Gundhai Sar sequence may in fact be Ali Masjid Formation (Group). A spot sample of crinoidal limestone overlying the main limestone (perhaps the Warran Ghundai Formation of Khan 1970) yielded conodonts of the late Famennian expansa Zone (Pogue et al. 1992), coeval with part of the Misri Khel Ali Masjid section. Gap-filled to Paleozoic/Devonian on this evidence.

Molloy, P.D., Talent, J.A. & Mawson, R. (1997)

Lithology (1)

Independently described (Khan 1969; Stauffer 1975, USGS OFR 75-272; and later Peshawar-basin reef studies): a Siluro-Devonian reef complex forming an isolated hill N of Jamrud Fort, subdivided into dolomitized quartzite, talus/reef breccia, crinoidal limestone with phyllite, and a reef-core unit; fauna include corals, stromatoporoids, crinoids and graptolites. Literature-search-derived; confirm against PDF.

Stauffer, K.W. (1975)

Sources (3)

Malkani, M.S. & Mahmood, Z. (2017). Stratigraphy of Pakistan. Geological Survey of Pakistan, Memoir Vol. 24.
Stauffer, K.W. (1975). Geology of the Khyber Pass, Khyber Agency, Pakistan. U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 75-272.
Molloy, P.D., Talent, J.A. & Mawson, R. (1997). Late Devonian-Tournaisian conodonts from the eastern Khyber region, north-west Pakistan. Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia, 103(2), 123-148.

Reviewer confidence: medium

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: Appears in a single-author Geological Survey of Pakistan memoir (Malkani & Mahmood 2017), not cross-confirmed against the Shah lexicon. The Stratigraphic Committee of Pakistan is largely inactive, so documented provenance — not formal ratification — is the available signal.

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Cite this unit

APA

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

BibTeX

@misc{stratigraphypk_ghundaisarformation,
  author    = {Qudsi, Lareb},
  title     = {{Ghundai Sar Formation} --- 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/ghundai-sar-formation (accessed October 29, 2026).