Tavildara Fm

Includes in Khation Region, Sughd Region. I. E. Gubin (1960) and O. K. Chediya (1971) distinguish them in a separate Lyabidzharskaya suite (лябиджарскую свиту).

Synonym: Tavildara suite, Тавиjlьдаринская свита, Lyabidzharskaya suite, лябиджарскую свиту, Tavildarin suite (тавильдаринской свитой)

In the Karateginsky district, these are gray and pinkish-gray large-gravel and boulder conglomerates with lenses of coarse-grained sandstones. Thickness is 1200-1500 m.

In the Dushanbinsky district, these are alternating brown gravels, poorly sorted sandstones and argillites. The thickness of the suite increases from east to west from 300 to 1500 m.

In the Kafirnigan district, the Tavildara suite (тавильдаринская свита) is developed in the northeast end of the Babatag Ridge, on its northwest slopes. It consists of gray sandstones with lenses and interlayers of small and medium-gravel conglomerates, the amount of which is especially large in the lower third of the section. The thickness of the suite is 1200 m.

In the Kulob district, the described suite is formed by colorful conglomerates, sandstones, and clays, the amount of which varies in individual sections. In general, the content of conglomerates decreases in the western and south-western directions.

In the upper reaches of the Yakh-su, Obimazar, Shurobdarya rivers, as well as in the basin of the Obikhingou river, the Tavildara suite (тавильдаринская свита) is three-membered. It begins with a layer (100-300 m) of reddish-brown conglomerates with interlayers of gravels and sandstones. The middle layer (200-500 m) consists of reddish-brown sandstones and gravels. The upper layer (600 m) consists of massive and unclearly stratified gray large-gravel conglomerates.

In 10-20 km to the south-west in the middle course of the Yakh-su river, the Tavildara suite becomes two-membered: its lower part here is conglomerate-sandy, the upper part is mainly conglomerate. The stratigraphic relationships between the three and two layers have not been accurately established. The thickness of the Tavildara suite in the Kulob district is 1200-2000 m.

In the Darvoz district to the west of the zone of the Severonamirsky (Karakul) fault, the Tavildara suite is mainly represented by colorful conglomerates 2000 m thick, which conformably overlay the Khingou suite. Within the indicated fault zone (according to I.-G. Vlasov, this is the Obinuouskaya zone) and to the east of it, the Tavildara suite is composed of colorful conglomerates and sandstones 500-1000 m thick, which lie with a sharp angular unconformity on various Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleogene formations (Vlasov, 1963).

In the upper parts of the Kafirnigan suite, correlated with the Tavildara suite, the skull of a middle-late Miocene mastodon was found. In the Tavildara suite itself, in the valley of the Yakhisu River, remains of the flora Phragmites oeningensis A. Br., Cypralites cf. deucalionis Ung., Pteris parschlugiana Ung., Driopteris meyeri (Heer.) Palib. have been found. It is not contradicted by the discovery by Ya. R. Melamed of fragments of the shell of the turtle Tectudo sp., similar to those known from Miocene-Pliocene deposits of North India.

V. I. Popov (1958) established the Surkhob rhythmic suite in the section along the Obihingou River near the village of Tavildara, to which he attributed the upper 100 - 200 m of the Khingausk suite, as well as the two lower beds of the Tavildara mentioned above. Thus defined, the suite loses its distinctive features already 10-20 km to the southwest, therefore, during the surveys of the Southwestern Tajikistan, it is not distinguished.