Heavy Mineral Assemblage of the Pinjor Formation of the Northwestern Himalaya and its Significance in Deciphering the Provenance of the Sediments

Dense mineral assemblage of the Late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene Pinjor Formation of the type area is of immense significance in determining the provenance of the sediments their correlation and understanding the diagenetic changes. Heavy liquid separation technique has been used to isolate the heavies. 82 representative samples showing significant variation in grain size and lithology were selected for incident and reflected light petrography. The heavy mineral assemblage of the Pinjor Formation in the type area comprises zircon, tourmaline, rutile, garnet, staurolite, kyanite, sillimanite, epidote, chlorite/ chloritoid, biotite and zoisite amongst the non-opaque minerals while the opaque minerals include ilmenite, magnetite, hematite and limonite. Garnet is the most abundant heavy mineral followed by biotite and zoisite and others among the non opaque minerals, while ilmenite, magnetite and hematite dominate the non-opaque heavies. Percentage frequency of the various minerals in the measured sections of the Pinjor Formation has been worked out. It is concluded that the sediments comprising the Pinjor Formation are immature, were derived from the lithostratigraphic units exposed to the North of the foredeep and exhibit little affects of intrastratal solutions.