Karanak Fm

Includes in Dushanbe-west Shirkent-Luchob, east Shirkent-Luchob

Synonym: Karanakskaya suite, Каранакская свита

Reference section:

In the Dushanbinsky district, the Karanak Fm is composed of light brown medium- and coarse-gravel conglomerates with boulders. The degree of their sorting decreases up the section. In them, layers of loess-like fine earth and gravels are common. The incomplete thickness is 1000 m.

In the northwest part of the Kafirnigan district on the northwest slopes of the Babatag ridge, the Karanak Fm is composed of pale fine-grained sandstones with a thickness of 500-800 m with lenses of limestone breccia, in the clasts of which there are remains of Paleogene fauna.

On the predominant part of the territory of the Kafirnigan district and in the Vakhsh district, the Karanak Fm (каранакская овита) is represented in the channels of the most powerful paleorivers (Paleo-Kafirnigan - Aktau mountains, Paleo-Vakhsh - Tabakchi mountains) by gray conglomerates and sandstones, and at the foot of paleo-uplifts - pale fine-grained sandstones. The thickness is 450 - 850 m.

In the Kulob district (Petra I ridge, basins of the Yakhso and Kyzylsu rivers) the Karanak Fm is represented by various rocks. In the belt stretching to the east of the village of Tavildara and along the left bank of the Yakhso river, gray medium- and large-gravel conglomerates of 700 - 1700 m thickness are developed, containing rare lenses of gravelites and sandstones. The conglomerates have a limestone-sandy cement, are very dense, and during erosion create a characteristic steep "ruin-like" relief, noted by A.R. Buracheck (1933) as one of the most characteristic features of the Karanakskaya suite, which he identified precisely in this belt. In more western and southwestern parts of the Kulob district, the Karanakskaya suite consists of brown (pale) siltstones of several hundred meters thickness. The correlation of these with the deposits of various suites in the eastern belt was done differently by different researchers, and the decision accepted here is not undisputed.

In the Darvaz district, gray conglomerates (with "ruin-like" relief) exposed in the upper reaches of the Vozgina river and at the Khoburabat pass are conditionally attributed to the Karanak Fm. The thickness is about 1000 m (?).

Contains remains of a Miocene mastodon, as well as the discovery of remains of late Miocene-early Pliocene ostracods Candona albicans Bg. (Gramm, 1948) in the Karanak Fm.