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Bhavanagar Formation
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Bhavanagar Fm base reconstruction

Bhavanagar Fm

Period: 
Paleogene

Age Interval: 
Middle Eocene


Province: 
W.India Cambay Basin

Type Locality and Naming

Localized occurrence. SUBSURFACE: Named after the township of Bhavanagar. Well Gulf-1, (depth interval 1891-2012 m), 121 m thickness. [Original Publication: Pandey, J., Singh, N.P., Krishna, B.R., Sharma, D.D., Paraish, A.K. and Nath, S.S. (1993) Lithostratigraphy of Indian Petroliferous Basins, Document III, Cambay Basin, 2 volumes, KDMIPE, ONGC Publicaiton, pp 1-166.]. Reference well: Well Gulf-2 (depth interval 1652 – 1780 m), 128 m thickness.

Synonyms: Pipavav Formation of Zutshi et al. (1993) is considered as junior synonym for this formation.


Lithology and Thickness

Sandy claystone. The type section includes grey shale, sandstone and ferruginous sandy claystone. The shales are intercalated with sideritic mudstone and sandy mudstone and sandstone. The sandstone is hard, coarse to very coarse grained. The thickness of the formation is 121 m in Gulf-1.

[Figure 1: Rock units and their reference sections in Cambay Basin (after Pandey et al., 1993)]

[Figure 2: Generalized stratigraphy of the Cambay Basin. (from Jaiswal and Bhattacharya, 2018, J.EarthSyst.Sci., 127:65)]


Lithology Pattern: 
Sandy claystone


Relationships and Distribution

Lower contact

The formation is unconformable with the Olpad Fm.

Upper contact

Unconformable with the Tarapur Fm

Regional extent

It is developed mainly in Cambay Gulf area west of Tankari Depression and east of Saurashtra Shelf and south of Wataman-Mitli Aholjuni on-land area up to Onkar River in Saurashtra to the south. Coeval with portions of Tharad Fm, Kalol Fm, and Anklesvar Fm.


GeoJSON

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Fossils

The formation is poorly fossiliferous, includes: palynofossils Polybrevicolporites cephalus, Plygalacidlites clarus, Pellicieroiporites sp., and P. langenheimii.


Age 

A Middle Eocene age is assigned based on palynofossils.

Age Span: 

    Beginning stage: 
Lutetian

    Fraction up in beginning stage: 
0.1

    Beginning date (Ma): 
47.37

    Ending stage: 
Priabonian

    Fraction up in the ending stage: 
0.1

    Ending date (Ma):  
37.33

Depositional setting


Depositional pattern:  

Additional Information


Compiler:  

D.S.N Raju