Paleozoic • Devonian Redefined In GSP lexicon

Nowshera Formation

Early Devonian

Devonian in the time scale →

Cited in 10 sources Last reviewed Aug 10, 2026

Unit summary

Rank: Not recorded
Status: Published
Age: Paleozoic · Devonian · Early DevonianEarly Devonian
Named by: Stauffer (1968); redefined by Pogue and Hussain (1986)
Type locality: 3.5 km north of Nowshera34.0470°N, 71.9750°E
Thickness: 595 m
Lithology: Reef limestone rich in corals and stromatoporoids, surrounded by brecciated reef limestone and sparsely fossiliferous dolomite, with a middle carbonate-cemented sandstone unit.
Synonyms: Not recorded

Nomenclature

Redefined. First defined by Stauffer (1968); redefined by Pogue and Hussain (1986).

Browse all alternative & superseded names →

An Early Devonian coral-stromatoporoid reef complex at Nowshera, above the Panjpir Formation.

Exposed in Nowshera area. Contains conodonts and brachiopods indicating Ordovician-Silurian age.

Fossils

Corals Stromatoporoids Cephalopods Gastropods Brachiopods Conodonts

Contacts

In the Hazara Basin column

MetamorphicLimestoneIgneousFossils recordedContact not recordedUnconformity

Band colour = period; texture = dominant rock type. Lines between bands mark the contact type (wavy = unconformity inferred from a missing period); 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

Hazara Basin

Basin: Not recorded
Region: Not recorded
Depositional environment: marine, reef
Coordinates: 34.0470°N, 71.9750°E

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See it in the field

Geoheritage site where this unit is exposed at outcrop.

Nowshera Devonian Reef

Khyber–Nowshera Belt

Correlation

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

Economic significance

Not recorded

Remarks

An Early Devonian reef complex at Nowshera, conformably overlying the Late Silurian Panjpir Formation; as redefined by Pogue and Hussain (1986) it includes a lower fossiliferous limestone/dolomite, a middle carbonate-cemented sandstone (the Misri Banda Quartzite of Stauffer) and an upper limestone/dolomite (the Pir Sabak Formation). Conodonts indicate an Early Devonian age.

Research notes (8)

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 (5)

Molloy, Talent & Mawson (1997) AGE FLAG: the paper refers to the 'Early Devonian (Lochkovian–?Pragian) Nowshera Limestone' (~50 km E of Peshawar), citing Ali & Anwar (1969), Stauffer (1967, 1968b), Talent & Mawson (1979) and Pogue et al. (1992) — a rich tabulate-coral (Cladopora etc.) carbonate. This DB record's fields are internally inconsistent (age 'Middle Ordovician to Silurian' but period 'Devonian'): if it corresponds to the Nowshera Limestone the age should be Early Devonian, whereas a Middle Ordovician–Silurian span would instead cover the underlying Nowshera-area sequence (Misri Banda Quartzite / Panjpir Formation). Recorded as a flag for reconciliation with a Nowshera-specific source; not overwritten.

Molloy, P.D., Talent, J.A. & Mawson, R. (1997)
Mawson, Talent et al. (2003), 'Siluro-Devonian conodonts from Nowshera, Pakistan' — the dedicated conodont study of the Nowshera-area carbonates. Its title-level result (Siluro-Devonian), together with the 'Early Devonian (Lochkovian–?Pragian) Nowshera Limestone' of Molloy, Talent & Mawson (1997), gives two independent primary lines of evidence for a Silurian–Early Devonian age — reinforcing the earlier flag that this record's age field ('Middle Ordovician to Silurian') is inconsistent with its own epoch/period ('Early Devonian'/'Devonian') and should be reconciled to Siluro-Devonian for the Nowshera Limestone (an Ordovician–Silurian span would instead cover the underlying Misri Banda Quartzite / Panjpir Formation). NOTE: the 2003 PDF is a scanned image with no text layer and could not be machine-read here, so its detailed zonation is not incorporated; the age field is left unchanged pending reconciliation.

Mawson, R., Talent, J.A. et al. (2003)
Kazmi & Abbasi (2008) RESOLVES the age flag: conodont studies (Molloy in Talent & Mawson 1979) indicate an Early Devonian age for the Nowshera Formation (reef-complex limestone/dolomite, 595 m, type 3.5 km N of Nowshera); near Nowshera the Late Silurian Panjpir Formation is conformably overlain by the Nowshera Formation. The book explicitly separates the underlying Ordovician Misri Banda Quartzite (Cruziana rugosa, Skolithos; Pogue et al. 1992) and the Middle Ordovician(?)–Late Silurian Panjpir Formation as distinct units — so the previous 'Middle Ordovician to Silurian' age actually belonged to those underlying units. Age corrected to Early Devonian (agrees with Molloy, Talent & Mawson 1997 and Mawson et al. 2003, and with the record's own epoch/period).

Kazmi, A.H. & Abbasi, I.A. (2008)
Pogue, Harris & Hussain (1992): conodonts (Belodella devonica, Icriodus corniger/struvei plexus, Polygnathus, Ancyrodella cf. buckeyensis) date the Nowshera Formation as Early to early Late Devonian (Lochkovian to Frasnian) - the first evidence of these ages in Pakistan south of the Main Karakoram Thrust. About 1,150 m of sandy dolomite, calcareous/dolomitic quartzite and fossiliferous reef limestone (the classic Nowshera Devonian reef); redefined by Pogue & Hussain (1986) to include quartzites Stauffer had mapped as Misri Banda.

Pogue, K.R., Harris, A.G. & Hussain, A. (1992)
Hussain, DiPietro & Pogue (1998): the Nowshera Formation (type locality 3.5 km N of Nowshera on the Nowshera-Risalpur road; correlated with the Ghundai Sar reef complex of the Khyber area) is Early to early Late Devonian (Lochkovian-Frasnian; upper part N of Swabi yields Ancyrodella cf. buckeyensis and Polygnathus cf. webbi). The authors reject Latif's (1970) Carboniferous age (ampleximorph corals at Pir Sabak) in favour of the Devonian conodont control.

Hussain, A., DiPietro, J.A. & Pogue, K.R. (1998)

Fossils & biostratigraphy (1)

Siluro-Devonian conodont faunas recovered from the Nowshera area constrain the age of the Nowshera Formation reefal carbonates (Mawson et al. 2003).

Mawson, R., Talent, J.A. et al. (2003)

Geological significance (1)

Khan et al. (2026): the Devonian Nowshera Formation forms the Nowshera Reef Complex, the only Devonian reef complex in Pakistan, of high geoheritage and geotourism value (scientific, educational and touristic significance) and under quarrying pressure.

Khan, E.U., Waskowska, A. & Galka, E. (2026)

Sources (9)

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.
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.
Mawson, R., Talent, J.A. et al. (2003). Siluro-Devonian conodonts from Nowshera, Pakistan. [Journal details not machine-readable from the supplied scanned PDF.]
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.
Pogue, K.R., Harris, A.G. & Hussain, A. (1992). Paleozoic and Mesozoic stratigraphy of the Peshawar basin, Pakistan: Correlations and implications. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 104(8), 915-927.
Hussain, A., DiPietro, J.A. & Pogue, K.R. (1998). Stratigraphy and structure of the Peshawar basin, Pakistan. Journal of Nepal Geological Society, 18, 25-35.

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

BibTeX

@misc{stratigraphypk_nowsheraformation,
  author    = {Qudsi, Lareb},
  title     = {{Nowshera 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/nowshera-formation (accessed October 29, 2026).

To cite the unit's original definition instead, see: Stauffer (1968); redefined by Pogue and Hussain (1986).

Below · older

Panjpir Formation

Ordovician–Silurian

Above · younger

Shagai Limestone

Silurian–Devonian

Referenced in other successions

Overlain by Jafar Kandao Formation