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Nagaur — tertiary interface under Punjab-Haryana semi-desertic plains in western India

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Journal of the Geological Society of India

Abstract

The subsurface Nagaur Basin in northwest Haryana and southwest Punjab hosts evaporite sequence, conformably overlain by Nagaur red beds and grey beds. A polymictic conglomerate intervenes the Nagaur sequence and the overlying Tertiary sequence. The focus is on the new finds of (i) distinctive ‘grey beds’ overlying ubiquitous red beds, (ii) ‘Malout conglomerate and grit’ horizon (Palaeocene-Miocene) marking an unconformity over the Nagaur Group (early Cambrian) and (iii) ‘entrapped gas and dried-up leaves/carbonaceous flakes’ in the conglomerate unit and succeeding Tertiary rocks. Palaeoenvironmental significance has been discussed. The Nagaur ‘red beds’ has been likened to ‘continental red beds’ of Schreiber (1978) and ‘reworked red beds’ of Krynine (1949). The ‘grey beds’ are channel fillings, fresh material having been derived from fresh cuttings by streams/rivers following structural grains in the Aravalli landscape where the interfluves provided weathered (oxidised) materials for the red beds. Association of continental red beds and grey beds is known in the Newark Series (Triassic) of the Eastern United States and the Keweenawan ‘late Precambrian’ of the Lake Superior region.

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Dey, R.C. Nagaur — tertiary interface under Punjab-Haryana semi-desertic plains in western India. J Geol Soc India 74, 131–137 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12594-009-0097-6

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