Kamlial Formation
Middle to Late Miocene (Burdigalian-Tortonian; ~18.2-9.4 Ma)
Neogene in the time scale →Cited in 11 sources Last reviewed Aug 20, 2026
- Rank
- Not recorded
- Status
- Published
- Age
- Cenozoic · Neogene · Middle to Late MioceneMiddle to Late Miocene (Burdigalian-Tortonian; ~18.2-9.4 Ma)
- Named by
- Pinfold (1918)
- Type locality
- Southwest of Kamlial, Attock District
- Thickness
- 90 m at type locality (range 50-580 m; 68-718 m in subsurface)
- Lithology
- Purple-grey and dark brick-red, medium- to coarse-grained sandstone with hard purple shale interbeds and yellow/purple intraformational conglomerate; spheroidal weathering; heavy-mineral suite tourmaline-dominant (distinguishing it from the epidote-dominant Murree Formation).
- Synonyms
- Not recorded
The lowest of the 'Siwalik' river deposits on the Potwar Plateau - grey and reddish sandstones with pebbly lenses marking the Miocene rivers that drained the growing Himalaya.
Fluvial sequence with coarsening upward cycles. Increasing proximity to Himalayan source area. Part of Siwalik Group.
Fossils
Contacts
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
- Basin
- Not recorded
- Region
- Not recorded
- Depositional environment
- fluvial, continental
- Coordinates
- Not recorded
Correlation
Not recorded. Compare this unit against other basins on the correlation panel →
Economic significance
Not recorded
Remarks
The basal formation of the Siwalik Group (top of the Rawalpindi Group) in the Potwar Plateau; grey to reddish-brown sandstone with intraformational conglomerate and reddish clay, deposited by Miocene braided rivers. Its coarsening character records increasing proximity to the rising Himalayan source area.
Research notes (11)
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's compiled lexicon. Adds the definitional GSP/SCP lexicon citation.
Shah, S.M.I. (2009)
Age & correlation (2)
-
Age extended from 'Middle Miocene' to Middle-Late Miocene (Burdigalian-Tortonian) per the Indian Plate Lexicon (compiler N.K. Siddiqui).
-
Johnson et al. (1982), magnetic-polarity stratigraphy of the Potwar Plateau stratotypes: the Kamlial–Chinji boundary (top of the Kamlial Formation) lies within Chron 14 at about 13.1 Ma in the Khaur (Kamlial stratotype) area. The stratotype samples only the upper Kamlial; its lowermost part is not resolved by that section, consistent with the curated older bound (~18 Ma) derived elsewhere.
Johnson, N.M., Opdyke, N.D., Johnson, G.D., Lindsay, E.H. & Tahirkheli, R.A.K. (1982)
Lithology (5)
-
Iqbal et al. (2018), Rumbli–Panjar area (southern Hazara–Kashmir syntaxis): the Kamlial Formation is sandstone, siltstone and subordinate clays with intraformational conglomerates, exposed at Panjar, Kaloian and Barathian. It is distinguished from the overlying Chinji Formation by dominant tourmaline and from the Nagri Formation by the absence of volcanic clasts; wood fossils, petrified wood and leaf impressions are recorded. Local section thickness ~933 m (Kashmir Basin, after Islam 2006).
-
Gill (1951), Northern Potwar type area: the Kamlial Stage is characterised as hard red and brown ridge-forming sandstone — the basal stage of Gill's Siwalik succession, above the Murree Formation.
-
Flynn et al. (2016): the late Early Miocene Kamlial Formation contains >50% sand, distinguishing it from the overlying finer-grained red silt of the Chinji Formation; it is the basal Siwalik formation of the Potwar above the Murree Formation.
Flynn, L.J., Pilbeam, D., Barry, J.C., Morgan, M.E. & Raza, S.M. (2016)
-
Munthe et al. (1979): at Daud Khel the Kamlial Formation is 648 m thick and 83% sandstone - distinctive dull-greenish-gray, very-fine to fine, moderately-to-well-sorted sandstone ('gray schist arenite') with interbedded clay-pebble pseudoconglomerate and grayish-red-purple siltstone. It is far sandier than its Khaur-Dome stratotype (~20% sandstone) and possibly the thickest Kamlial section exposed anywhere; the authors retain it in the Siwalik Group (not the Rawalpindi Group of Fatmi 1974).
Munthe, J., Hussain, S.T., Lukacs, J.R., West, R.M. & Shah, S.M.I. (1979)
-
Gill (1951): in the northern Potwar the Kamlial Stage is separated from the underlying Murree Series by its spheroidal weathering, the colour of weathered surfaces and its finer sandstone grain, and throughout the region yields heavy-mineral residues with a flood of tourmaline and a paucity of epidote — the reverse of the epidote-rich, tourmaline-poor Chinji and Murree beds.
Thickness (1)
-
Thickness reset to the 90 m type-section value (Kamlial, Attock; full range 50-580 m, 68-718 m subsurface), superseding a prior 750 m estimate.
Stratigraphic contacts (1)
-
Upper formation of the Rawalpindi Group; conformable/transitional on the Murree Formation, but at places overlies the Sakesar Formation (and, at Kundal in the Khisor Range, probably Triassic) unconformably.
Economic significance (1)
-
Craig et al. (2018): the Middle-Late Miocene Kamlial Formation (alluvial large-river sandstones, mudstones and caliche; >400 m thick, deposited 18-14 Ma per Johnson et al. 1985) forms, with the Murree, the overburden/seal component of the Rawalpindi Group - though seals in the Rawalpindi and Siwalik groups are not laterally extensive. Its base records a major provenance change from diversion of the palaeo-Indus (Nanga Parbat-Haramosh detritus).
Sources (11)
- 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.
- Indian Plate Lexicon (indplex.geolex.org), Geological Society of India and international compilation.
- Shah, S.M.I. (2009). Stratigraphy of Pakistan. Geological Survey of Pakistan, Memoir Vol. 22.
- Johnson, N.M., Opdyke, N.D., Johnson, G.D., Lindsay, E.H. & Tahirkheli, R.A.K. (1982). Magnetic polarity stratigraphy and ages of Siwalik Group rocks of the Potwar Plateau, Pakistan. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 37, 17-42.
- Iqbal, O., Baig, M.S., Pervez, S. & Siddiqi, M.I. (2018). Structure and Stratigraphy of Rumbli and Panjar Areas of Kashmir and Pakistan with the Aid of GIS. Journal of the Geological Society of India, 91, 57-66.
- Gill, W.D. (1951). The stratigraphy of the Siwalik Series in the Northern Potwar, Punjab, Pakistan. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, 107, 375-394.
- Kazmi, A.H. & Abbasi, I.A. (2008). Stratigraphy and Historical Geology of Pakistan. Department & National Centre of Excellence in Geology, University of Peshawar, Peshawar. 524 pp. ISBN 978-969-9119.
- Flynn, L.J., Pilbeam, D., Barry, J.C., Morgan, M.E. & Raza, S.M. (2016). Siwalik synopsis: a long stratigraphic sequence for the Later Cenozoic of South Asia. Comptes Rendus Palevol, 15(7), 877-887.
- Munthe, J., Hussain, S.T., Lukacs, J.R., West, R.M. & Shah, S.M.I. (1979). Neogene Stratigraphy of the Daud Khel Area, Mianwali District, Pakistan. Milwaukee Public Museum Contributions in Biology and Geology, 23, 1-18.
- Craig, J., Hakhoo, N., Bhat, G.M., Hafiz, M., Khan, M.R., Misra, R., Pandita, S.K., Raina, B.K., Thurow, J., Thusu, B., Ahmed, W. & Khullar, S. (2018). Petroleum systems and hydrocarbon potential of the North-West Himalaya of India and Pakistan. Earth-Science Reviews, 187, 109-185.
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.
Cite this unit
Qudsi, L. (2026). Kamlial Formation. In Pakistan Stratigraphy Dataset [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21363991
@misc{stratigraphypk_kamlialformation,
author = {Qudsi, Lareb},
title = {{Kamlial 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/kamlial-formation (accessed October 29, 2026).
To cite the unit's original definition instead, see: Pinfold (1918).
Related units
More from Potwar Basin
Same age (Cenozoic · Neogene)
Saved on this device only.