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Lateral Structural Variation along the Kalabagh

Fault Zone, NW Himalayan Foreland Fold-and-
Thrust Belt, Pakistan.

Article in Journal of Asian Earth Sciences · January 2013

DOI: 10.1016/j.jseaes.2012.01.009

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 Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 50 (2012) 79–87

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Journal of Asian Earth Sciences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jseaes

Lateral structural variation along the Kalabagh Fault Zone, NW Himalayan

foreland fold-and-thrust belt, Pakistan
Shuhab D. Khan a,⇑, Lize Chen a, Sajjad Ahmad b, Irshad Ahmad c, Fayaz Ali b
a
Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5007, USA
b
Department of Geology, University of Peshawar, Peshawar, 25120, Pakistan
c
National Center of Excellence in Geology, University of Peshawar, Peshawar, 25120, Pakistan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The NW Himalayan fold-and-thrust belt in Pakistan is of gentler regional slope and wider extent than the
Received 21 July 2011 other parts of the convergent plate boundary between India and the rest of Asia. Large scale structural re-
Received in revised form 6 January 2012 entrants typify the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT) of the NW Himalayan fold-and-thrust belt in Pakistan.
Accepted 11 January 2012
Understanding dynamics of the formation of these structural variations has been hampered by the lack
Available online 21 February 2012
of information about the lateral structures bounding the re-entrants. Our mapping of the Kalabagh Fault
Zone, a lateral ramp linking the Salt and the Surghar Ranges, advanced spaceborne thermal emission and
Keywords:
reflection radiometer (ASTER) data, field investigations and the interpreted reprocessed 2D seismic data.
Himalayas
Strike slip faults
This integration of surface and subsurface geology provides new insights on the geometry and evolution
Thrust geometry of the Kalabagh Fault Zone, by showing that it forms an oblique ramp to the Main Frontal Thrust, and at
Pakistan north a lateral ramp with right-lateral strike slip movement. Our results indicate that the presence and
Foreland fold-and-thrust belt areal extent of the evaporates is the dominant factor controlling lateral structural variation in the NW
Salt tectonics Himalayan fold-and-thrust belt of Pakistan. The Kalabagh Fault Zone acts as a zone that accommodates
Remote sensing differential shortening and structural variation along the orogenic trend.
Seismic reflection Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Overthrusting related to Indo–Asian continental collision has
generated a major foreland fold-and-thrust belt in the Himalayan
mountain range. From north to south, four tectonostratigraphic
units are distinguished in the active foreland fold-and-thrust belt
of Northern Pakistan (review by DiPietro and Pogue (2004)): (1)
the Main Boundary Thrust (MBT) zone; (2) the Kohat, Potwar Pla-
teaux and the Bannu Basin; (3) the Salt Range and the Trans-Indus
Range; and (4) the Punjab Foreland Basin (Fig. 1). The Salt and the
Trans-Indus Ranges are the surface expression of the leading edge
of the foreland fold-and-thrust belt. The Main Frontal Thrust (MFT)
lying at the foot of these ranges juxtaposes pre-Tertiary rocks de-
tached at the base of a Precambrian–Cambrian sequence above
younger rocks formed within the undeformed Punjab Foreland Ba-
sin. The map expression of MFT and its associated ranges is charac-
terized by a sinous structural trend in North Pakistan giving rise to
a couple of salients and reentrants which are bounded by strike
slip faults at their margins. In contrast, the foreland fold-and-
thrust belt between the MBT and the MFT in the Indian Himalayas
is much narrower, simpler and exposes only the Tertiary sediments
(Yin, 2006). The complex structural pattern and lateral structural
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 713 743 3411.
E-mail address: sdkhan@uh.edu (S.D. Khan).
variations of the MFT and associated ranges of north Pakistan are
considered to be related to rheological and along strike variations
along the basal decollement (Lillie et al., 1987 and Davis and Lillie,
1994) lithospheric scale, north south trending antiformal folding
along the Hazara Kashmir syntaxis (Burg and Podladchikov,
1999) and shape of downgoing continental slab (Marshak, 2004).
Along-strike changes in structure are reported from other places
in the world, for example Perez-Estaun et al. (1997) described sev-
eral along-strike structural changes in the foreland thrust and fold
belt of the southern Urals, Harris and Milici (1977) in the Southern
Appalachians and Elliott and Johnson (1980) from northwest Scot-
land. The Kalabagh Fault Zone, the western margin of the Potwar
Plateau, is the eastern flank of the Kalabagh re-entrant, which rep-
resents a large lateral structural variation.
Three possible explanations have been suggested for the forma-
tion of the Kalabagh Fault Zone: (1) it is an en-echelon branch of
the Chaman Fault, which is a transform plate boundary between
the Indian and the Asian plates in Pakistan and Afghanistan (Trel-
oar et al., 1992); (2) it is a lateral ramp of the MFT (Butler et al.,
1987); and (3) it is a transpressional strike-slip fault (McDougall
and Khan, 1990). In order to find out which, if any, of these three
possibilities best explains the formation of the Kalabagh Fault
Zone, we integrated ASTER data with information from seismic
lines to make a new interpretation of the structure of the Kalabagh
Fault Zone. Cross-sections have been constructed to help

1367-9120/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jseaes.2012.01.009
80 S.D. Khan et al. / Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 50 (2012) 79–87

Fig. 1. Map showing the NW Himalayan foreland fold-and-thrust belt in Pakistan. MMT = Main Mantle Thrust; MBT = Main Boundary Thrust; MFT = Main Frontal Thrust;
KF = Kalabagh Fault. The gray part is the active ranges at the front of the foreland fold-and-thrust belt. The rectangular box around the KF is the area of Figs. 2 and 5. Structures
modified from Chen and Khan (2009, 2010). Inset map modified from Khan et al. (2009) showing tectonic sketch map of southeast Asia. GF = Ghazband Fault; PF = Panjao
Shear; HF = Heart Fault; MKT = Main Karakoram Thrust.

understand fault geometry and the role of salt in the structural
variations of the NW Himalayan foreland fold-and-thrust belt.
2. Tectonic setting and stratigraphy
The basement of the NW Himalayan foreland fold-and-thrust
belt is formed of granites and gneisses of the Indian Shield and
younger Precambrian meta-sediments and meta-igneous rocks
(Davies and Crawford, 1971; Kochhar, 1982). The overlying stratig-
raphy can be divided into three major units: the Salt Range Forma-
tion, the overlying platform sediments, and the molasse sediments
(Khan et al., 1986). The oldest sedimentary rocks, the Salt Range
Formation (Precambrian), unconformably overlie the Precambrian
basement rocks (Shah, 1977). This Precambrian evaporitic se-
quence is exposed in the Salt Range and the Kalabagh Fault Zone
and is considered to represent a weak décollement beneath the
foreland fold-and-thrust belt. Its thickness varies from tens to
thousands of meters at different localities. The average thickness
is about one thousand meters in the western Potwar Plateau (But-
ler et al., 1987).
The platform rocks consist of Middle-lower Cambrian to Lower
Eocene rocks that thins eastward (Shah, 1977; Yeats and Hussain,
1987). The platform rock assemblages record a fairly quiet period
of continuous sedimentation in a shallow sea concomitant with
the down-sagging of the Kohat–Potwar trough. The sagging was
occasionally interrupted by block uplifts, often of prolonged dura-
tion that resulted in disconformities that spread over a vast time
span. Two major unconformities within the platform sequence
dip very gently towards the east (Gee, 1980). The older unconfor-
mity separates the Permian rocks from Cambrian rocks, whereas
the second one separates the Tertiary rocks from the older forma-
tions. After the deposition during the Middle Eocene sequence, the
initial phase of the Himalayan orogeny initiated and the sea re-
ceded from the Kohat–Potwar Basin, leaving a fluvial–lacustrine
environment. The event is marked by the widespread Oligocene
unconformity. In Mio-Pliocene and Pleistocene, the area received
an enormous amount of detrital material in fluvial and lacutrine
environments of sedimentation with a gradual westward younging
from the Salt Range in the east up to the Trans Indus Ranges in the
west. The post-platform sequence consists of a lower unit referred
to as the ‘Rawalpindi Group’ and includes the Murree and the Kam-
lial formations. The Siwalik Group, which lies above the Rawalpin-
di Group consist of the Chinji, the Nagri, the Dhok Pathan and the
Soan formations. The sedimentary sequence exposed along Kala-
bagh hills is comprised of Salt Range Formation at the base fol-
lowed by platform and molasse sequence similar to elsewhere in
Salt Range (Gee, 1980). It is important to know that the exposure
of the Precambrian salt is confined to the Kalabagh hills located
along the eastern margin of the Kalabagh reentrant and has not
 S.D. Khan et al. / Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 50 (2012) 79–87 81

been reported elsewhere along the northern and western margins

of the Kalabagh reentrant (Sercombe et al., 1998; Pivnik and
Sercombe, 1993; Abbasi and McElroy, 1991).

3. Methods

3.1. ASTER processing and applications

Satellite remote sensing is frequently used for geological map-

ping in desert and semiarid areas, that can lead to excellent litho-
logical mapping using ASTER data (e.g. Rowan and Mars, 2003;
Gomez et al., 2005; Ninomiya et al., 2005; Khan and Glenn,
2006; Khan and Mahmood, 2008; Massironi et al., 2008). Whereas,
Aftabi et al. (2010) used remote sensing on salt domes in contrac-
tional belt, Velaj et al. (1999) discussed field relations of evaporites
in fold and thrust belts. In this work, two scenes of ASTER 1B data
acquired on 13 October 2003 were processed using ENVI software. (A)
The ASTER data used for this study contain 14 bands that include
three visible and near-infrared (VNIR, 15 m/pixel), six shortwave
infrared (SWIR, 30 m/pixel) and five thermal infrared (TIR, 90 m/
pixel). Details about ASTER data used in this work are documented
in Yamaguchi et al. (1998) Abrams (2000) and Khan and Glenn
(2006). VNIR and SWIR bands were resampled to the same size pix-
els (15 m/pixel) for further processing, because of their different
spatial resolutions. To generate a map view, two scenes of ASTER
data were mosaiced in the UTM coordinates. A VNIR/SWIR false
color composite was obtained by displaying ASTER bands 7 as
red, band 3 as green, and band 1 as blue. This combination is sim-
ilar to the Landsat composite of band 7, 4, 3 (RGB) that had proved
to be effective in interpreting the structure of this terrain (Chen
and Khan, 2009). The false color image highlights the boundaries
of salt outcrops and facilitates the mapping of fold axes and faults.
Strong correlation exists among the 14 ASTER bands, especially
the SWIR bands. A principal component analysis (PCA) is used to (B)
produce uncorrelated output bands. By finding a new set of orthog-
onal axes with maximum variance, and setting the axes origin at Fig. 2. ASTER principle component analysis (PCA) images for geological mapping.
the data mean, the PCA generated output components with a low (A) RGB combination of PCA bands 9, 7, and 8 for mapping of the Jurassic sandstone
correlation (Richards and Jia, 1999; Guo et al., 2009). Principal (in bright green color) and (B) RGB combination of PCA bands 4, 3, and 2 for
interpretation of the Kalabagh Conglomerate, Nagri Formation, Chinji Formation,
component analysis was applied to the whole scene and all of Ainwan Fault (F1), and Dinghot Fault (F2).
the bands. By visually evaluating the different band combinations,
the lithology and structures in the Kalabagh Fault Zone can be
the noise in the original seismic lines, and facilitated the geological
interpreted. For example, the RGB composites of the PCA 9, 7,
interpretation as in Fig. 3.
and 8 bands proved effective for detecting the Jurassic sandstone
interbedded with claystone (Fig. 2a). Fig. 2b is a RGB combination
of PCA 4, 3, and 2 bands for the northern segment of the Kalabagh 4. Surface and subsurface geology
Fault Zone. The Kalabagh Conglomerate, Nagri Formation and
Chinji Formation are distinguishable. On this image, fault outcrop, 4.1. Surface geology
such as those of Dinghot Fault and the Ainwan Fault can be identi-
fied (Fig. 2b). Fig. 4 shows a geological map compiled from the published
maps and processed ASTER data. Some of the smaller lithological
unit outcrops are better resolved on the 1:50,000 geological map
3.2. Seismic reflection processing and applications for the Salt Range (Gee, 1980; McDougall and Khan, 1990; Ahmad
et al., 1999), but the ASTER images provide more information on
Three seismic reflection profiles were used to interpret subsur- the linear structures. The processed imagery also helped by refin-
face structure and stratigraphy (Fig. 3). The acquired migrated seis- ing lithologic boundaries. Previously unmapped rocks and struc-
mic reflection data show strong reflections for the platform rocks. tures were delineated in the northern segment of the Kalabagh
On the other hand the reflectors of sequences above the platform Fault Zone, for which a reliable published geological map based
rocks are indistinguishable. Spectral decomposition on the original on conventional fieldwork is not readily available.
seismic lines was used in this study to improve the signal resolu- The stratigraphic sequence of Gee (1980) is well documented by
tion in the post-platform sedimentary rocks. The frequency domain the outcrops as shown in the geological map (Fig. 4). The rocks ex-
was divided into 20 spectral components, and those components posed in the Kalabagh Fault Zone are continuous within the wes-
with low S/N ratio were filtered out on the basis of the signal-to- tern Salt Range. The Precambrian and the Permian rocks of the
noise (S/N) ratio of the post-platform units for each spectral com- platform sequence are in direct contact with the Kalabagh Con-
ponent and applying a high-pass filter. The filtered frequency slices glomerate and the alluvium. Southwestward overthrusting brings
were transformed back with inversion algorithm. Filtering reduced the older rocks to the surface. The Kalabagh Fault Zone cuts late
82 S.D. Khan et al. / Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 50 (2012) 79–87

(A)
Seismic Line 1

(B)
Seismic Line 2

(C)
Seismic Line 3

Fig. 3. (A) Seismic profile Line-1, the up extension of the thrust faults may correspond to the Kalabagh Fault Zone and splay faults on the surface. (B) Northern portion of
seismic profile Line-2 showing salt near the Indus River and major sequences in the Punjab Foreland Basin. The major sequence boundaries are marked with unconformities.
(C) Northern portion of the seismic profile Line-3 showing basement and overlying sequences next to the Kalabagh Fault Zone. See Fig. 4 for lines locations.
 S.D. Khan et al. / Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 50 (2012) 79–87 83

Fig. 4. Geological map of part of the Kalabagh Fault Zone compiled from the ASTER data and published maps (Gee, 1980; McDougall and Khan, 1990; and Ahmad et al., 1999).
The black and blue lines are the locations of geological cross-sections and seismic profiles. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is
referred to the web version of this article.)

Quaternary alluvial fans east of Ghundi (Yeats et al., 1984) (Fig. 4).
Small thrusts and normal faults were mapped at the frontal thrust.
At Khairabad, an east plunging anticline has Permian rocks and
salts in its core. It is suggested to be an anticline as is cored by
Paleozoic rocks at Kalabagh Hill. The anticline is displaced 12–
14 km in a right-lateral sense. The Surghar Range is terminated
at the north end of Kalabagh Hill abruptly. The strata and struc-
tures at the eastern terminus of the Surghar Range are repeated
at Kalabagh Hill. It is inferred that a buried fault offsets the struc-
tures at Kalabagh Hill from the eastern end of the Surghar Range
(McDougall and Khan, 1990). The main strand of the Kalabagh
Fault Zone runs along the straight channel of the stream flowing
southwards into the Indus River, and merges to north-dipping
thrust faults north of the Surghar Range. The east–west striking
thrust faults at south of Kohat Plateau are bent to the south in
the northern extent of the Kalabagh Fault Zone.
84 S.D. Khan et al. / Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 50 (2012) 79–87

(A)

Km
Kalabagh Hill Indus River
NW
SE

A A’

(B)
E
W

B B’

(c)
SW NE

C C’

Fig. 5. Geological cross-section lines passing through the Kalabagh Hill (line illustrated on Fig. 4. (A) Lin e A–A0 perpendicular to the Kalabagh Fault Zone; (B) Line B–B0
parallel to the Kalabagh Fault Zone. Faulting is related to salt diapirism. (C) Line C–C0 passing through the convex lobe north of Ghundi. The existence of the salt allows the
thrust to propagate over the Foreland Basin. Arrows indicate the inferred flowage direction of salt. (D) Line D–D0 perpendicular to the southern segment of the Kalabagh Fault
Zone. The overthrusting along the salt detachment brings the older rocks to the surface. Key is the same for all cross-sections as for line A–A0 .

4.2. Seismic interpretation body is recognized on the seismic Line-1 (Fig. 3A) and Line-2
(Fig. 3B) close to the town of Kalabagh (Fig. 4). The Cambrian se-
Seismic lines cover almost the entire Kalabagh re-entrant. Salt is quence is recognized in subsurface on seismic lines throughout
generally identified as a seismically transparent zone. A major salt the area with varying thickness. The boundary between the
 S.D. Khan et al. / Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 50 (2012) 79–87
(D)
SW
D
Fig. 5 (continued)
Cambrian rocks and the Proterozoic is not a strong reflector, which
may be caused by the presence of salt on the basement. Permian
strata lie unconformably on top of the Cambrian units. The Triassic,
the Jurassic, and the Cretaceous sequences are identified in the
seismic line with good reflectors. Lower Tertiary strata overlie
unconformably over the Mesozoic strata and show moderate
amplitude. The present study identifies this unconformity as a top-
lap (Fig. 3B and C). The platform sequence is typically marked by a
series of strong, parallel, continuous reflectors of moderate to high
amplitude, and is easy to recognize on seismic profiles. On con-
trary, the post-platform units are marked by semicontinuous, par-
allel reflectors of moderate amplitude since the thick sequence is a
mixture of sandstone, clay and shale.
Seismic Line-1, trending east–west and with a length of
18 km, cuts across the Kalabagh Fault Zone south to the Indus
River (Fig. 3A). Because the western part of this line has a low S/
N ratio, the remaining part with good reflectors of strong ampli-
tude is not enough to identify all of the individual sequence pack-
ages. However, the post-platform deposits at the top are easy to
interpret. The faults at the eastern part of the seismic Line-1
(Fig. 3A) may correspond to the Kalabagh Fault and its splay faults
that are exposed at the surface. The low S/N ratio at the western
part of this line may be caused by the salt activity, this is supported
by the presence of a large salt body in the seismic Line-2 (Fig. 3B)
that crosses the western end of the Line-1. Push-up structures due
to salt diapirism can also be observed on the Line-1 (Fig. 3B). The
basement deepens northward. The Line-3 (Fig. 3C) extends from
Khairabad southwards to the western end of the Salt Range and lies
close to and parallel the Kalabagh Fault Zone. The north-dipping
basement, strong reflections of the platform sequence, and semi-
continuous post-platform sequence are identified on the seismic
line. No thick salt layer was observed on the top of the basement.
A thrust fault near the northern end of the line can be observed
where the seismic line is close to the salt body.
4.3. Interpretation of the geological cross-sections
Cross-sections were constructed based on the surface geological
information coupled with seismic reflection profiles. Cross-section
line A–A0 extends southwards from the Kalabagh Hill up to the
Foreland Basin through the re-entrant (Fig. 5A; for locations, see
Fig. 4). Cross-section line B–B0 passes through the Kalabagh Hills
eastwards (Fig. 5B). The most pronounced features are salt diapir-
ism and strike slip faulting that resulted in the structural uplift of
85
NE
D’
Kalabagh Hill. The salt under the Potwar Plateau flowed south-
westwards and accumulated at the Kalabagh area. The salt mi-
grated upwards along the bounding strike slip faults of Kalabagh
Hill, forming the salt outcrop near the Indus River. Cross-section
line C–C0 cuts across the convex lobe north to Ghundi (Fig. 5C).
The Precambrian salt and the overlying rocks are emplaced over
the undeformed rocks in the Foreland Basin related to oblique
ramping from the basal decollement. The ramp from the basal
decollement appears to be very steep as compared to those associ-
ated with frontal parts of thrust sheets. Several out-of-sequence
thrust faults cut the platform sediments and merge with the shal-
low horizontal detachment. Pop-up structures are found near the
steep thrust ramp that may be related to the temporary pause in
the displacement of the main thrust. Due to the mobilization of
the salt, collapse may have also occurred and may have led to
the development of normal faulting at the thrust front. Major strike
slip faulting associated with thrusting seems to have mobilized
and accumulated a large amount of salt along the base of the ramp.
Cross-section line D–D0 (Fig. 5D) is located at the southern end of
the Kalabagh Fault Zone, where it is bent towards the Salt Range.
We infer similar structures as suggested for the line C–C0
(Fig. 5C). Overthrusting above the salt detachment could have
brought the older rocks onto the Punjab Foreland Basin. The front
of the thrust appears to be severely folded. Our idea that the thrust
advance rides on salt is supported by similar interpretations for
open toed allochthonous salt sheets by Hudec and Jackson (2009
and 2006).
5. Discussion
The geological map and the cross-sections suggest that the Kal-
abagh Fault Zone can be divided into two segments north and
south of the restraining bend at the Khairabad. The northern seg-
ment is predominantly of strike-slip nature with obvious right-lat-
eral movement. This is measurable on the geological map along the
main 100 km long strand of the Kalabagh Fault Zone and the
associated synthetic east–west trending Surghar Fault. The Ainwan
and Dinghot Faults, which are the subsidiary faults to the main Kal-
abagh Fault Zone also show measurable lateral displacement and
clearly display of predominance of strike slip faulting. The south-
ern segment is an oblique ramp of the Potwar thrust slab. The pre-
vious models alone, described in Section 1 of this paper, cannot
explain the different structural assemblages and behavior associ-
ated with the same fault zone. By combining the second and the
86 S.D. Khan et al. / Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 50 (2012) 79–87
third models, we can explain the lateral structural variations along
the Kalabagh Fault Zone. In response to stacking of thrusts in the
proto Main Boundary Thrust Zone, the Kohat–Potwar thrust slab
moved to the south and southeast giving rise to the Northern Pot-
war Deformed Zone (NPDZ) and the Kohat fold belt (Baker et al.,
1988; Jaswal, 1990; Jaswal et al., 1997). The coherent thrust slab
beneath the Kohat fold belt and the NPDZ were severely sliced with
extensive internal deformation probably due to the absence of salt
that could have lubricated the southward migration of the Kohat–
Potwar Thrust Sheet. The Potwar thrust sheet encountered an easy
glide horizon, Salt Range Formation south to the NPDZ. This al-
lowed rapid southeastward movement, as compared to the Kohat
Plateau – its western analogue. At the Kohat Plateau, salt is absent
at the basal decollement, leading to the development of an inter-
nally less deformed fold-thrust belt. This faster rate of thrust prop-
agation resulted in the onset of wrenching at the location of the
Kalabagh Fault Zone. The early wrenching along the Kalabagh Fault
Zone facilitated the thrusting of the Potwar slab quite rapidly to-
wards the south.
Whereas, beneath the Kohat thrust slab, the basal decollement
offered more resistance. This is due to the lack of salt that conse-
quently created more internal shortening in area and less in width
within the Kohat Plateau as compared to the Potwar Plateau. Ser-
combe et al. (1998) also attributed the change in the structural
style between the Kohat and Potwar plateaus to be controlled by
change in Precambrian lithology. Their work utilized data from
two wells drilled by AMOCO in Kohat Plateau and geophysical data
that included reflection seismic, gravity and magnetic data along
with surface geological data. In addition geomorphometric and
drainage analyses based on DEM data suggest subdued topography
with gentle slopes in the Potwar Plateau and rugged topography
with steep slopes in the Kohat Plateau (Chen and Khan, 2009).
The Kalabagh Fault Zone behaved primarily as a lateral ramp along
its northern segment with horizontal displacement truncated
along the basal decollement at the site of Salt Range front. During
the period of frontal ramping and evolution of the Salt Range, the
Kalabagh Fault Zone behaved as an oblique ramp south to
Khairabad.
Laboratory (or sand box) models (Cotton and Koyi, 2000; Costa
and Vendeville, 2002: Schreurs et al., 2002) have demonstrated
that fold-and-thrust belts advance faster and further over viscous
decollements than over high friction decollements. They also
showed that strike-slip transfer zones develop along the primary
salt boundaries. Such work implies that the Potwar thrust sheet
advanced (or has been advancing) rapidly south-eastwards over
Precambrian salt. By comparison, the narrower and more internally
deformed Kohat Plateau advanced more slowly over a high friction
decollement on which the salt was never deposited. The Kalabagh
Fault Zone is one of the Precambrian faults that bounded the salt-
free Cambrian fault block and gave rise to a strike-slip transfer
fault segmenting the Pakistan fold–thrust belt.
6. Conclusions
The Kalabagh Fault Zone is a lateral structure in the NW Hima-
layan fold-and-thrust belt of Pakistan that accommodates differen-
tial thrusting induced by lithologic variations along the basal
decollement. The different combinations of uncorrelated PCA com-
ponents of ASTER data prove to be effective for geological mapping.
Seismic interpretation of salt diapirs, salt detachments, basement
configuration, and faults is critical to understand the formation
and evolution of the Kalabagh Fault Zone. Combining the surface
geology with the seismic interpretation, the Kalabagh Fault Zone
is divided into two segments of different tectonic activities. Its
northern segment is predominantly of strike-slip nature with salt
diapirism and upward migration of salt. South to Khairabad, the
major fault is a lateral ramp of the MFT. Oblique overthrusting oc-
curred along the salt detachment zone, which carried old rocks
over the Punjab Foreland Basin and built a pronounced topographic
highland. The Potwar–Salt thrust wedge propagates southward
quicker and farther than the Kohat–Surghar thrust wedge due to
the lubricating effect of the salt. A lateral structure, the Kalabagh
Fault Zone, formed as a transfer zone to accommodate the different
deformational styles between two thrust wedges.
Acknowledgments
This work is funded by NSF Grant (OISE-1049512). We are
thankful to Dr. Kevin Burke, Dr. Boris Natalin and anonymous
reviewers for their very detailed reviews of the manuscript.
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