Pakistan - The Salt Range and Khewra Salt Mine

Rising abruptly from the Punjab plains west of the River Jhelum and ending equally precipitously on the Indus River, one hundred and eighty kilometres in the west, the Salt Range is a long linear formation of sheer escarpments, jagged peaks, rolling hills and desolate ravines. Nestling between these hills, are fertile valleys scattered with lakes and irrigated by spring fed streams. The Salt Range originated 800 million years ago when evaporation of a shallow sea followed by under thrusting of the Indian Plate formed a range that stretched for about 300 kilometres. The range derives its name from the occurrence of the thickest seams of rock salt in the world embedded in the Precambrian bright red marls of the Salt Range Formation. The Salt Range constitutes a narrow zone of localized strong folding, faulting and uplift, in contrast to the open folds of low structural relief in the Potwar Plateau and no deformation at all in the immediately adjacent Punjab Plain.