Mesozoic • Cretaceous GSP memoir

Hunza Plutonic Unit

Mid-Cretaceous (~105 Ma)

Cited in 7 sources Last reviewed Jul 30, 2026

Unit summary

Rank: Not recorded
Status: Published
Age: Mesozoic · Cretaceous · Albian (mid-Cretaceous)Mid-Cretaceous (~105 Ma)
Named by: Not recorded
Type locality: Hunza Valley, Gilgit-Baltistan36.3200°N, 74.6600°E
Thickness: Plutonic body
Lithology: Granodiorite, tonalite, diorite
Synonyms: Not recorded

Arc-related granodiorite-tonalite plutons of the southern/western Karakoram batholith, built above the subducting Neo-Tethys before the India-Asia collision.

Arc-related plutonics in southern Karakoram. Part of the Trans-Himalayan batholith system.

Fossils

Not recorded

Contacts

In the Karakoram column

IgneousMetamorphicLimestoneSandstoneFossils 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

Karakoram

Basin: Not recorded
Region: Not recorded
Depositional environment: Not recorded
Coordinates: 36.3200°N, 74.6600°E

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Correlation

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

Economic significance

Not recorded

Remarks

A calc-alkaline, subduction-related plutonic suite (quartz diorite, tonalite, granodiorite) that dominates the western-central Karakoram batholith; part of the pre-collisional Trans-Himalayan arc built above the Neo-Tethyan subduction zone, and deformed in the south by later collisional thrusting. U-Pb zircon dating places the Hunza plutonic complex in the mid-Cretaceous (~105 Ma).

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.

Age & correlation (3)

Narrowed from the baseline Cretaceous-Paleogene (which bundled the whole Karakoram batholith) to the mid-Cretaceous emplacement age (~105 Ma U-Pb zircon) of the Hunza plutonic unit proper (Crawford & Searle 1992). Era reset Cenozoic -> Mesozoic accordingly.

Crawford, M.B. & Searle, M.P. (1992)
Kazmi & Jan (1997): the mid-Cretaceous, calc-alkaline Hunza Plutonic Complex of the Karakoram Batholith is U-Pb zircon dated at 95 ± 5 Ma (with K-Ar 46 Ma hornblende and 26 Ma biotite; Le Fort et al. 1983) — quartz diorite to granite (granodiorite predominant), its southern part foliated and garnet-bearing with migmatite and late two-mica/garnet-muscovite leucogranite dykes; a pre-collision unit. Consistent with the curated ~105 Ma age.

Kazmi, A.H. & Jan, M.Q. (1997)
Assigned mid-Cretaceous (Albian, ~105 Ma) within the ca. 115–80 Ma range of the pre-collision (India–Asia) Karakoram plutonic units; the Hunza plutonic unit is a calc-alkaline, quartz diorite–granodiorite suite emplaced above the north-dipping subduction zone before the ~50 Ma collision (Crawford & Searle 1992).

Crawford, M.B. & Searle, M.P. (1992)

Geological significance (1)

Corroborated by Rex et al. (1988) and Searle (2011): the Hunza Plutonic Unit is part of the Karakoram batholith, an Andean-type (I-type, calc-alkaline) suite generated by Late Jurassic to Mid-Cretaceous north-dipping subduction of Tethyan oceanic lithosphere beneath the Karakoram, pre-dating the ~50 Ma India-Asia collision. Consistent with the recorded mid-Cretaceous (~105 Ma) subduction-related setting.

Searle, M.P. (2011)

Sources (6)

Malkani, M.S. & Mahmood, Z. (2017). Stratigraphy of Pakistan. Geological Survey of Pakistan, Memoir Vol. 24.
Crawford, M.B. & Searle, M.P. (1992). Field relationships and geochemistry of pre-collisional (India-Asia) granitoid magmatism in the central Karakoram, northern Pakistan. Tectonophysics, 206(1-2), 171-192.
OpenStreetMap contributors and GEOnet Names Server (public geographic gazetteers), used to geolocate named GSP type localities to approximate decimal coordinates.
Kazmi, A.H. & Jan, M.Q. (1997). Geology and Tectonics of Pakistan. Graphic Publishers, Karachi.
Rex, A.J., Searle, M.P., Tirrul, R., Crawford, M.B., Prior, D.J., Rex, D.C. & Barnicoat, A. (1988). The geochemical and tectonic evolution of the central Karakoram, North Pakistan. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A, 326, 229-255.
Searle, M.P. (2011). Geological evolution of the Karakoram Ranges. Italian Journal of Geosciences, 130(2), 147-159.

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: 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). Hunza Plutonic Unit. In Pakistan Stratigraphy Dataset [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21363991

BibTeX

@misc{stratigraphypk_hunzaplutonicunit,
  author    = {Qudsi, Lareb},
  title     = {{Hunza Plutonic Unit} --- 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/hunza-plutonic-unit (accessed October 29, 2026).