Shaheed Ghat Fm

Ghazij Gr – lower formation in Sulaiman Province (SP). Holotype section: Shaheed Ghat, Zindapir. Author: S.M.I. Shah, 1999. Reference section: None.

Claystone. The formation is composed dominantly of clays, which range in color from green, brown to chocolate shades. Subordinate beds of limestone, marl and marly clays with fossils make up a considerable part of the formation, gypsum beds occasionally appear. At the type locality, the clays are easily splintered, and numerous calcite veins occur covering large area in the middle part of the formation. In Moghal Kot section, the unit is comprised of shales with subordinate limestone. In the central part of Zindapir anticline, the unit consists of bluish grey, greenish grey to olive green shales, thinly laminated and fissile with a few 1-2 m thick marl interbeds. Farther south towards the end of Zindapir anticline the formation consists mainly of greenish grey, light olive, grey, green and fissile claystone with argillaceous limestone bands.

Thickness: 20- >600 m. At the type section, it is 680 m thick and at Moghal Kot (Toi Nallah) it is 340 m. In the subsurface, it is thinnest (20 m) at Sui gasfield where an abruptly large thickness of Sui Main Lmestone Fm has developed at the expense of Shaheed Ghat Fm (Siddiqui, 2004). North of the Zin structure (Sulaiman Lobe) the formation is more than 600 m thick in subsurface, and the Sui Main Limestone Fm is absent.

The fossils among pelecypoda are Venericardia pakistanica, Lucina yawensis, Corbula (Biocorbula) subexarata, C. (B.) paraexarata; the gastopde species Crommium polihathra, Turritella (Stiracolpus) harnaiensis, Chondrocerithium pakistanicum, Gisortia cf. G. murchisoni have been collected (Iqbal, 1969b; as in Shah, 2009).