Geology and Petrography of the Nagar Parkar Igneous Complex, Southeastern Sindh, Pakistan: The Kharsar Body

Abstract

ABSTRACT Kharsar hill is one of many granitic plutons comprising the Nagar Parkar igneous complex. The eastern part of the hill is occupied by grey-pink granite (earlier) and the western part by pink granite (later). They are composed of perthite, quartz, and plagioclase, with minor opaque oxide, biotite, titanite, local amphibole, and secondary chlorite, epidote, leucoxene/titanite. The pink granite is characterized by the presence of mafic clots. Both the granitoids are intruded by microgranite/aplite, and porphyritic mafic and rhyolite dykes, locally in swarms. These are abundant in a NE trending 200 m wide zone cutting the entire granite hill. The dykes may extend over 1 km in length and >10 m in thickness, but most are < 100 m in length. The felsic dykes are of several generations; some are associated with the two varieties of granite, others are contemporaneous with the rhyolite and mafic dykes. The mafic dykes can be grouped into two types one of which contains hornblende and the other augite as the principal mafic mineral. Major element analyses suggest that the granitic rocks are metaluminous. The Kharsar granites, like the others in Nagar Parkar, may be an extension of the Malani igneous suite of Rajasthan. The occurrence of bimodal mafic-felsic dykes and petrographic variation in the mafic dykes are briefly discussed.