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Rautgara Formation
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Rautgara Fm base reconstruction

Rautgara Fm

Period: 
Paleoproterozoic

Age Interval: 
Statherian/Calymmian boundary; 1610 Ma


Province: 
N.India Lesser Himalaya

Type Locality and Naming

Kumaun Garhwal Region, named after Rautgara village in Kumaun Region. [Original Publication: Valdiya, K.S. 1968. Origin of magnesite deposits of southern Pithoragarh, Kumaun Himalaya. Economic Geol. 63, 924-934.]


Lithology and Thickness

Fine-grained sandstone and volcanics. Fine to medium-grained muddy quartzite (sublitharenite) of cream, white, pink, purple, grey and brown colors, sparse lentils of conglomerate and olive green and purple slates, oxidized to deep red soils, and basic sills, dykes, lava-flows (Valdiya, 1968); ~400m.


Lithology Pattern: 
Fine-grained sandstone


Relationships and Distribution

Lower contact

In Yamuna Valley these rocks imperceptibly grade downwards into the Chakarat Fm.

Upper contact

Defined by almost abrupt transition of the slates into limestone and dolomites of the Deoban Fm.

Regional extent

Kumaun-Garhwal Lesser Himalaya


GeoJSON

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Fossils

None


Age 

The intercalated mafic volcanics in the Rautgara (Nagthat) Formation and their presumed equivalents (Rampur metabasalts) have yielded an age of 1.8 Ga (Miller, C., Klötzli, U., Frank, W., Thoni, M., Grasemann, B. 2000. Proterozoic crustal evolution in the N.W. Himalaya (India) as recorded by circa 1.80 Ga mafic and 1.84 Ga granitic magmatism. Precambrian Research, 103, 191-206), which makes the Damtha Group the oldest sedimentary succession in the Himalaya. (Palaeoproterozoic Seismites in Damtha Group, Lesser Himalaya, India, after Ghosh et al., 2012). However, Miller (2017) disputes this age, and assigns the Raulgara Fm to 1600 Ma. His proposed correlation to the Nourpui Fm of Lesser Himalaya in Nepal is used here; but with insertion of a gap at the top and beginning slightly older.

Age Span: 

    Beginning stage: 
Statherian

    Fraction up in beginning stage: 
0.9

    Beginning date (Ma): 
1,620.00

    Ending stage: 
Statherian

    Fraction up in the ending stage: 
0.98

    Ending date (Ma):  
1,604.00

Depositional setting

Not available


Depositional pattern:  


Additional Information


Compiler:  

O.N. Bhargava & Birendra Singh.