Neogene-Quaternary Boundary in the Siwalik of Northwest Himalayan Foothills, India

Abstract Magnetic Polarity stratigraphy of the Upper Siwalik has been worked out along four traverses on the Surin-Mastgarh anticline, Jammu and Kashmir State. Fission-track dating of the bentonite beds allows correlation to the accepted magnetostratigraphic scale and identification of the Olduvai Normal Subchron in the Upper Siwalik sections. The Vrica section, Italy, is now selected as the Pliocene-Pleistocene Boundary stratotype and the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary is fixed above the Olduvai at 1.64 Ma, In the Upper Siwalik, at 1.64 Ma, there is no change either in the mammalian fauna or in lithology and life and sedimentation appears to have continued without any change. On the otherhand, a faunal change occurs at the Gauss-Matuyama transition dated at 2.48 Ma which is correlated to Tatrot-Pinjor faunal boundary. It is, therefore, suggested here that it is more practical to make the Pliocene-Pleistocene Boundary in the continental Siwalik to coincide with the base of Pinjor faunal boundary.