Marble:

Marble is defined here to include recrystallised limestone, which can take polish and is used as building and decorative stone. Pakistan has fairly large deposits of marble, they are located in the Northern areas, as well as in Chagai, Balochistan; evidently due to the fact that being near to the centres of stress and temperature during orogeny,rocks in the are a suffered metamorphism,changing limestone to high quality marble as well as recrystallisation in the limestone beds producing low quality marble.

                Important marble deposits are located in small hillocks in the Peshawar basin at Nowshera, Pir Sabak, Gohati and Swabi. Marble occurs in rocks of Devonian age. In the Gilgit-Skardu, large reserves of marble are present. Similarly Reshun marble in Chitral, also in Swat and Malakand (Ahmad, 1965). Among them the noteworthy is that of Bampokha group deposits. From where marble comes to the Punjab a market with a trade name of “Pampakhan Marble”. According to Calkins et al. (1981) marble along with dolomite and limestone is widespread in the Chitral District.
              Important among these deposits is the Reshun marble, which occurs almost along the full length of
the Chitral district arearWhile fine-grained marble is also available in large quantities in Gahirat, just near the main road between Drosh and Chitral Towns. The other marble localities are in the Bumboret, Rumbur and Biriw valleys of Kafristan. Marble dolomite interbedded with the limestone and shale suitable for Portland cement, is available in the Reshun area. The reserves have not been calculated but seams to the order of millions of tonnes.

             Marble of Khyber Agency is in Mullagori territory at two places viz., Shahid Mena and Kambela Khwar. It is developed in the Khyber limestone of probable Precambrian age. The deposits are long known and have been exploited on limited scale since decades. The Shahid Mena marble is generally white, medium to fine grained saccharoidal, calcific and free from impurities; it is comparable to world famous marble of Carrara, Italy and Makrana, India. Most of the marble is covered with scree from which boulders provide al1 easy means of extraction. Only 33 m of bed rock section is exposed in a cliff where more than 65,000 ㎥ of marble has been estimated by Asrarullah (1963), and The actual reserves must be much more. At Kambela Khwar, about 600 m thick succession of marble of variable quality is exposed over an area of 1.5 km x 0.8 km (Asrarullah, 1963). Exact reserve estimates have not been made but judging from the extent of the rocks, the reserves should be immense. The Kambela Khwar marble varies in colour and quality. It is generally fine grained but some layers are saccharoidal. In upper part of the succession, banded marbles and beds of grey green, yellow and brown marble are present whereas the lower part consists of beds of grey and white marble. Some of the white saccharoidal marble is comparable to that of ShahidMena.

             Marble in the hillocks of Peshawar plain belongs to the reefal development of SiluroDevonian age (Teichert and Stauffer, 1965). The deposits of Nowshera hills are of poor quality. It is generally argillaceous, ferruginous, and pink to reddish brown with joints, cracks and veinlets of calcite. Large uniform coloured blocks are difficult to obtain. Although reserves are of the order of millions of tonnes but poor quality renders it unsuitable as decorative building stone. The hillock of Ghundai Tarako near Gohati contains white saccharoidal marble of good quality (comparable to Shahid Mena marble) in its northwestern part, restricted to the lower 15 m of the exposed succession. The upper 50 m of the succession contains poor quality marble (Ahmad, 1965). Reserves of good quality marble are estimated at 300,000 m (Asrarullah, 1963).Another occurrence of marble is in a hill just north of Manari near Swabi. The hill is composed of grey crystalline limestone and some dark grey siltstone and slate. Most of the marble is of low quality and grey colour white, green and yellow varieties are also found. White marble often containing grey patches, occurs in the western part of the hill in two beds totalling 10 m in thickness. It is medium to fine grained, comparable to Shahid Mena marble chemically. However, numerous joints and fractures and the grey patches degrade its quality. About 35,000㎥ of workable reserves of white marble have been calculated at Manari (Asrarullah, 1963).