Chitarwata Formation

The Chitarwata Formation is a geological formation in western Pakistan, made up of Oligocene and early Miocene terrestrial facies. It is dominated by coastal paleoenvironments (estuarine, strandplain and tidal flat).

Paleomagnetic data indicates an age range of around 22 to 17 or 18 million years, with its base in the Oligocene, and its upper boundary, where it meets the overlying Vihowa Formation, of earliest Miocene.

Together with the Vihowa Formation, the Chitarwata Formation records the sedimentation of the Himalayan foreland basin during the collision of the Indian and Asian tectonic plates, the transition from marginal marine to fluvial environments, and the rise of the Himalayas.

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