Textural Characterization of Middle Paleocene Sediments from Thar Coalfield Southern Indus Basin Pakistan

Abstract

The primary objective of the current research was to study the depositional environment of the Bara Formation of the Southern Indus Basin. The present study shows a detailed grain-size analysis of seventy (70) sandstone samples (Core samples from 20 boreholes) from Bara Formation, Thar Coalfield, Southern Indus Basin, Pakistan. The textural analysis shows that most sandstone samples were medium grain size with coarse-grained as a sub-ordinate, and a small amount of fine-grain was associated with minor fractions. The sediments were moderate to poorly sorted, fine skewed to near-symmetrical, and leptokurtic to mesokurtics. They were deposited under fluctuating energy conditions with a fluvial depositional environment predominant. Bivariate graphs indicate that the fluvial/river process was dominant over the deltaic process in (Middle Paleocene) Bara Formation. Passega (C-M) graph specifies that the sediments of Bara Formation transported as bed load and suspension under the current depositional setting. The linear discriminate function (LDF) analysis shows a fluvial-deltaic depositional environment.