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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
Houston Geological Society Bulletin
Abstract
Abstract: Neogene Basin Development in the Waqia Valley, Southeast Pamir
Recent fieldwork along the north-northwest trending Waqia
Valley in the southeast Pamir has identified a thick sequence
of Neogene deposits in an extensional basin. Stratigraphic and
structural relationships change within the basin from north to
south. Along the northern end of the Waqia Valley, Neogene
lacustrine and fluvial sediments with a minimal thickness of
~250m overlie basement schists and marbles above a buttress
unconformity interpreted to reflect infilling of the paleotopography
of the valley. These Neogene sediments are deformed by a westfacing
monocline along the eastern margin of the valley. To the
south, the eastern side of the Waqia Valley is bound by a steeply
west-dipping normal fault
, the Waqia
Fault
. Subsidence of the
hanging wall has accommodated ≥1000m of Neogene sediment
fill in a half-graben. Neogene sediments grade from fluvial/
lacustrine deposits in the center of the valley to cobble/boulder
conglomerate fans with landslide blocks of presumed footwall
lithologies in the east, adjacent to the
fault
. Slickenside lineations
on minor faults within the basin deposits adjacent to the Waqia
Fault
show both normal and strike-slip components. While highly
degraded scarps at the south end of the Waqia
Fault
suggest
recent activity along a portion of the
fault
, Quaternary terrace
deposits in the vicinity of the monocline and along the northern
half of the Waqia
Fault
show no evidence of recent deformation.
Timing of the Waqia
Fault
and associated basin sediments is
unknown. However, structural and stratigraphic relationships of
the
fault
and associated Neogene deposits suggest it is likely Late
Miocene to Pliocene in age. Regionally, the Waqia Valley occurs
along the strike of the interpreted northwest extent of the
Karakax
Fault
and the southeast flank of the easternmost Central
Pamir gneiss dome. We suggest two possible models for the
development of the Waqia
Fault
and associated basin deposits:
(1) The Waqia Valley is a releasing-bend associated with regional
left-lateral strike-slip deformation at the western section of
the Karakax
fault
. This model, however, is inconsistent with
regional kinematic architecture of the Karakax
Fault
, which
requires the presence of a transpressional
fault
in the area.
(2) The Waqia
Fault
and basin development are kinematically
related to the development of mid-Miocene Central Pamir
gneiss domes.