The Gold-quartz Deposits of Pahang (Malay Peninsula)

Abstract

The Gold–quartz formation of Pahang traverses an extensive series of sedimentary rocks, of which the low hill-country lying on the eastern side of the granitic mountain-axis chiefly consists. These rocks, probably of Palæozoic age, are for the most part thinly-bedded slates, with some sandstones, and fewer dark-coloured, impure limestone-beds. Locally they are more or less metamorphosed and contorted; quartzites, and micaceous and other schists, often intervening between the slate-series proper and the greater igneous rock-masses. Generally the strata are regularly and evenly bedded, with a prevailing strike approximately north-and-south; they dip at steep angles, mostly eastwards, from which it would appear that they have been subjected to an upheaval, due to intrusion of the central granite. Other upheavals are traceable to syenitic intrusions, which form lesser hill-ranges between the backbone-chain and the eastern coast; while numerous dykes of trappean rock have caused minor local disturbances. There are not, to my knowledge, any indications of eruptive volcanic action in Pahang, or in any other part of the Malay Peninsula. Besides the extensive slate-formation, the only sedimentary rock noticeable is a peculiar crystalline limestone, which apparently over-lies the first-named unconformably, and is found in isolated hill-patches, characterized by abrupt vertical cliffs and numerous caves. All the alluvial formations appear to be of quite recent origin, and to have been undisturbed since the commencement of their deposition. Although the Gold-quartz formation in Pahang is most frequently associated with certain characteristic dark-grey and black slate-rocks, it is not confined to these, but it is