Mesozoic • Cretaceous formation GSP memoir

Khalkhal Formation

? Cretaceous

Karakoram-Hindukush Basin · Central Karakoram Batholith

Cited in 4 sources Last reviewed Jul 30, 2026

Unit summary

Rank: formation
Status: Published
Age: Mesozoic · Cretaceous? Cretaceous
Named by: Desio (1963)
Type locality: Khalkhal glacier, a tributary of the Godwin-Austen (Baltoro) glacier35.8000°N, 76.4500°E
Thickness: about 800 m
Lithology: About 800 m of slaty calcareous sandstone, phyllite and conglomerate.
Synonyms: Not recorded

A thick (about 800 m) slaty metasedimentary unit of the Baltoro glacier region.

Named by Desio (1963) after the Khalkal Glacier, a tributary of the Godwin-Austen Glacier in the Baltoro basin, the Khalkal Formation is about 800 m of slaty calcareous sandstone, phyllite and conglomerate.

Fossils

Not recorded

Contacts

In the Karakoram column

IgneousLimestoneSandstoneFossils 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: Karakoram-Hindukush Basin
Region: Central Karakoram Batholith
Depositional environment: Not recorded
Coordinates: 35.8000°N, 76.4500°E

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Correlation

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

Economic significance

Not recorded

Remarks

A thick metasedimentary slate–sandstone–phyllite unit of the Baltoro region of the central Karakoram; its precise age is not established.

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)

Kazmi & Jan (1997): the Khalkhal Formation (the book's spelling; DB 'Khalkal' is a typo) is queried Cretaceous — shales, sandstones and conglomerates forming the highest (youngest) stratigraphic level of the Gasherbrum sedimentary sequence, in the sedimentary belt north of the Karakoram Batholith (Broad Peak area, where it is deformed to greenschist facies). This is a Karakoram/Gasherbrum unit — the DB regional tagging should be verified.

Kazmi, A.H. & Jan, M.Q. (1997)

Thickness (1)

Baseline thickness '200m' is a migration artifact: it is the thickness of the K2 gneiss, whose description is concatenated into this record. The Khalkal Formation proper is about 800 m thick (Desio, 1963). Flag for Phase-6 cleanup.

Malkani, M.S. & Mahmood, Z. (2017)

Sources (3)

Malkani, M.S. & Mahmood, Z. (2017). Stratigraphy of Pakistan. Geological Survey of Pakistan, Memoir Vol. 24.
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.

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). Khalkhal Formation. In Pakistan Stratigraphy Dataset [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21363991

BibTeX

@misc{stratigraphypk_khalkalformation,
  author    = {Qudsi, Lareb},
  title     = {{Khalkhal 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/khalkal-formation (accessed October 29, 2026).

To cite the unit's original definition instead, see: Desio (1963).