Tertiary continental deposits of Northwestern Pakistan and remarks on the 
collision between the Indian and Asian plates

The initial docking of the Indian Subcontinent with Asia resulted in the west-to-east closure of the Tethys sea. As a consequence the oldest continental sediments were deposited in the west. This event is documented by the presence of an earliest Eocene mammalian fauna located on the westernmost edge of the Indian Subcontinent (H-GSP 300). Since this fauna has Eurasian affinities, it documents the time of contact between the continental crusts of the two plates. All other Eocene mammalian faunas known from the northern part of the Indian Plate are located more eastward, are younger in age and show local endemism. Eocene sedimentation in the northern part of the subcontinent was succeeded by a period of erosion, with sedimentation not recommencing until early Miocene, as documented by the rodent fauna from the base of the Murree Formation (locality H-GSP 116).