List of faults in Pakistan


This is a list of faults in Pakistan.

Geology

Chaman Fault

The Chaman Fault is a major, active geological fault in Pakistan and Afghanistan that runs for over 850 km. Tectonically, it is actually a system of related geologic faults that separates the Eurasian Plate from the Indo-Australian Plate. It is a terrestrial, primarily transform, left-lateral strike-slip fault. The slippage rate along the Chaman fault system as the Indo-Australian Plate moves northward has been estimated at 10 mm/yr or more. In addition to its primary transform aspect, the Chaman fault system has a compressional component as the Indian Plate is colliding with the Eurasian Plate. This type of plate boundary is sometimes called a transpressional boundary.

Shyok Suture Zone

The Shyok Suture Zone is a cretaceous-tertiary suture located in Gilgit-Baltistan which separates the Karakoram from the cretaceous Kohistan–Ladakh oceanic arc. In previously published interpretations, the Shyok Suture Zone marks either the site of subduction of a wide Tethys Ocean, or represents an early cretaceous intra-continental marginal basin along the southern margin of Asia. A sedimentological, structural and igneous geochemical study was made of a well-exposed traverse in Skardu. To the south of the Shyok Suture Zone in this area is the Ladakh Arc and its Late Cretaceous, mainly volcanogenic, sedimentary cover. The Shyok Suture Zone extends northwards to the late tertiary Main Karakoram Thrust that transported Asian, mainly high-grade metamorphic rocks southwards over the suture zone.

Other faults