The Mountains
of Pakistan
From the copper deserts of Chagai to the foot of K2: thirteen places where the earth gives up its crystals, and the forces that made them.
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When India met Asia.
Some fifty million years ago the Indian plate, drifting north, struck Asia. Between them an old chain of volcanic islands, the Kohistan arc, was crushed and stood on end. The collision raised the Himalaya, the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush, and it is still going on.
Heat and pressure turned limestone into marble, where ruby and spinel grow. Hot fluids rose along the great faults and left emerald. Granite melts cooled slowly into pegmatites lined with aquamarine and tourmaline. Nowhere else do so many of these stories meet in one country.
Where the desert keeps its copper.
In the far west, the volcanic Chagai Hills hold some of the largest copper and gold deposits in the world at Reko Diq and Saindak. The same ground gives Chagai onyx: banded stone in honey, green and cream, cut for centuries into bowls and inlay.
- Copper and gold ores
- Chagai onyx
- Volcanic porphyry
29.30°N 64.70°E approximate
World of Minerals →The ocean floor, lifted onto land.
At Muslim Bagh the rocks are an ophiolite: a slab of ancient ocean crust and mantle pushed up onto the continent. It is one of Pakistan's classic sources of chromite, the ore of chromium, black and heavy in the hand.
- Chromite
- Serpentine
- Ophiolite rock
30.83°N 67.73°E approximate
Industrial & Lapidary →A mountain of pink salt.
The Salt Range rises abruptly from the plains of the Punjab. Its salt beds were laid down by evaporating seas more than five hundred million years ago, and the mine at Khewra is one of the oldest and largest salt mines in the world: the source of Himalayan pink salt.
- Pink halite
- Gypsum
- Ancient sea beds
32.65°N 73.01°E approximate
World of Minerals →Rare crystals at the city's edge.
Near Peshawar, the alkaline granite of Zagi Mountain is famous among collectors for minerals seldom found anywhere else in quality: golden astrophyllite, dark aegirine and riebeckite, and the rare zektzerite.
- Astrophyllite
- Aegirine
- Zektzerite
34.08°N 71.43°E approximate
Mineral specimens →Topaz the colour of dawn.
On the low hills near Katlang lies one of the few places on earth that yields naturally pink topaz. Crystals are small and fine ones are scarce, which is why a clean Katlang stone is a collector's prize.
- Pink topaz
- Imperial tones
- Quartz
34.36°N 72.08°E approximate
Katlang Pink Topaz →Emerald, where two continents met.
Above Mingora, emeralds grow in green schist along the great fault where the Indian plate meets the old Kohistan island arc. Swat emeralds are known for their vivid, slightly bluish green and fine crystals.
- Emerald
- Talc schist
- Chromium-green beryl
34.78°N 72.36°E approximate
Swat Emerald →Peridot from the edge of the sky.
High above the Kaghan Valley, at more than four thousand metres, miners reach peridot in ultramafic rock that is snowbound for much of the year. The crystals are among the largest and cleanest peridots known.
- Peridot
- Magnetite
- Serpentinite
35.05°N 73.85°E approximate
Kohistan Peridot →Rubies in white marble.
In the Neelum Valley, at Nangimali, rubies form in bands of white marble high on the mountainside: the same geology that gives the finest Asian rubies their glow.
- Ruby
- Marble
- Pargasite
34.75°N 74.05°E approximate
Shop rubies →The western pillar of the Himalaya.
At 8,126 metres, Nanga Parbat anchors the western end of the Himalaya. It is still rising: few places on earth bring deep rock to the surface faster, which is why its flanks expose crystals formed far below.
- Granite and gneiss
- Garnet
- Tourmaline
35.24°N 74.59°E approximate
The Journey →Ruby and spinel of the Karakoram.
Across the Hunza Valley, layers of marble carry ruby and spinel in pink, red and violet. The mines cling to slopes above the Karakoram Highway, worked by hand, often from simple adits in the cliff.
- Ruby
- Spinel
- Garnet
36.32°N 74.66°E approximate
Rough & Rare →Pink fluorite on a glacier's edge.
Near the glaciers of Nagar, the pockets of Chumar Bakhoor are famed for rose-pink fluorite octahedra, often with aquamarine and quartz: specimens prized by museums and collectors worldwide.
- Pink fluorite
- Aquamarine
- Quartz
36.35°N 74.85°E approximate
Mineral specimens →The pegmatite kingdom.
In the Shigar and Braldu valleys, the last melts of cooling granite crystallised into pegmatites: open pockets lined with aquamarine, tourmaline, topaz, apatite and morganite. From here come some of the finest gem crystals ever found in Asia.
- Aquamarine
- Tourmaline
- Topaz
35.60°N 75.55°E approximate
Rough & Rare →The roof of the journey.
At 8,611 metres, K2 is the second-highest mountain on earth. Around it lie the Baltoro and Biafo glaciers, among the longest outside the polar regions, carving the valleys where miners follow the crystals.
- Granite
- Gneiss
- Glacial quartz
35.88°N 76.51°E approximate
World of Gems →Where crystals are born.
Inside the mountain, in a pocket that has been dark since it formed, crystals grow atom by atom from hot, mineral-rich water, a few thousandths of a millimetre a year. A miner who opens such a pocket is the first to see it. This is the moment VERDAAN exists for.
The relief is a stylised, exaggerated model for the journey; places and heights are approximate. Each listing in the shop records its own locality.