Geological constraints on the Western Kohat foreland basin, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan: Implication from 2D and 3D structural modelling

Abstract

The Kohat Foreland Basin is an outcome of continental collision between Indian and Eurasian plates defining the southern edge of Himalayan Orogenic System in the north-western Pakistan. This study constrains the structural geometry and kinematics in 2-D and 3-D workflow, evaluation of the role of multiple detachments and the structural correlation between surface and sub-surface geology of the western Kohat Foreland Basin. The structural style of the western Kohat Foreland Basin evinces the thin skin deformation associated with a couple of structural detachments i.e. i) base-Eocene shale/ evaporite sequence ii) the upper interface of crystalline basement. These detachments separate the outcropping and buried stratigraphic sequence of the Kohat Foreland Basin into upper and lower structural-stratigraphic domains. The lower domain has a series of north-dipping or south-verging fold-thrust assemblages incorporating a rigid rock sequence of EoCambrian to Paleocene. The comparatively more ductile rocks of the upper domain comprising of Eocene to Pliocene are deformed into tight, overturned, doubly plunging and internally faulted anticlines intervened by broad synclines. The two domains dictate different deformational behavior and structural style, deforming in total disharmony; hence the structural geometry of shallow units does not match the sub-surface rocks. The total 37% of shortening in the sedimentary cover was revealed by structural balancing in 2-D and 3-D kinematic modelling. Stress analysis of Gurguri Fault unveiled 40% failure susceptibility and recorded positive values of effective normal stress (σn) with an orientation of maximum principle stress (σ1) as N17°.