Kala Chitta Range

Kala Chitta
Kala Chitta
Highest point
Elevation	841 m (2,759 ft)
Coordinates	33°43′N 72°10′E / 33.717°N 72.167°E
Naming
Native name	کالا چٹا (Punjabi)
Geography
	Kala Chitta
Country	Pakistan
Provinces	Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Kala Chitta Range (in Punjabi and Urdu: کالا چٹا Kālā Chiṭṭā) is a mountain range in the Attock District of Punjab, Pakistan. Kala- Chitta are Punjabi words meaning Kala the Black and Chitta means white. The range thrusts eastward across the Potohar plateau towards Rawalpindi.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Pakistan's Kuldana Formation is best known for its fossil Eocene mammals, including primitive cetaceans such as Pakicetus, Ambulocetus and Attockicetus. Kuldana mammals have been considered in different studies as coming from the early Lutetian (early Middle Eocene), late Ypresian (late early Eocene) or, more recently, encompassing much of Ypresian up to early Lutetian time (early part of the early Eocene to early Eocene medium).^[4]

Kuldana Formation

The Kuldana Formation is located in the Kata Chita hills and is a thin, 20-120 m thick tongue of low-lying continental red beds that lie within a much thicker sequence of foraminifera-rich marine formations. Shallow planktonic and benthic foraminifera limit the age of the Kuldana Formation to the late early or early middle Eocene, and the current interpretation of global sea level stratigraphy favours the latter.^[5]

The short duration of the low-water interval when Kuldana mammals were discovered means that differences between samples likely represent differences in local living environments, deposition sites, and sampling, rather than a substantial difference in age.^[5]

Kohat formation

The Kohat formation consists of calcareous shale and light grey limestone. It lies on top of the Kuldana formation and intermingles with the Murree formation of the Rawalpindi group.^[6] Formation in the middle Eocene.^[7]