ESSAY REVIEW

GEOLOGY OF THE HIMALAYA(S) *

By A. GANSSER. pp. xv + 289, with 149figs,and 95 photographs in
the text, and 4 pis. in pocket (maps, sections, and panoramas). Inter-
science Publishers (John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.), New York, Sydney,
1964. Price 10 gns.
By N. E. ODELL

This splendid volume (part of a Regional Geology Series), by the Professor

and Head of the Department of Geology of the Federal Institute of Tech-
nology of the University of Zurich, makes a notable attempt to be worthy of
its immense and magnificent subject. The author declares in the preface that
he knows personally only three regions of the Himalayan chain, viz. the
central Himalaya; the Darjeeling area; and from quite recent investigations
the Bhutan section of the eastern Himalaya; in all of which field-work has
necessarily involved considerable mountaineering skill. For the rest he has
had to study many existing publications covering many years, and the result
can only be described as very impressive. In fact, it was not till the end of
1962 that arrangements could be made to prepare the book, and the time
limit was set for its publication to be ready for the International Geological
Congress in New Delhi late in 1964. Between the above dates Dr. Gansser
was enabled in 1963, by the Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research and the
Swiss National Science Foundation, to make an expedition into Bhutan, that
most secluded of Himalayan States, and there to have the unique opportunity
of gathering much quite new geological information. A summary only of this
is embodied in the book. The whole vast subject is systematically tackled and
admirably summarized in twelve chapters, with superb photographic illustra-
tions of the highest quality, and explanatory geological sections, which throw
much required light on the often complicated structure and tectonics of the
great ranges.
Himalayan Setting
Under the title of " The Wider Frame of the Himalaya ", the opening
chapter deals with the Western, Eastern, and Northern areas, lying beyond
the Himalaya proper, e.g. Tien-Shan, Kun-Lun, Tibetan plateau, Pamir,
Hindu-Kush, etc. The author has critical and significant remarks to make on
the various views of the complicated tectonics of this vast region held by many
workers and travellers, whose opportunities of investigation have often been
limited, or in some cases marginal only. For instance, one would certainly
join the author in questioning the sweeping view of Huang (1960) that the
Tibetan plateau is actually a Hercynian consolidated Grundgebirge. The
significance of the Pamir, as a " major mountain Scharung in Asia " is
emphasized, as well as the Hindu Kush-Karakoram connection lying south
of it ; and critical comment is not omitted on the spectacular syntaxial bends
at either end of the Himalaya, which are undoubtedly caused by the north-
ward-directed spurs of the advancing Indian shield.
Western and North-western Himalaya
Chapter II gives a description of the chief elements of the Indian shield mass
and of its northern border juxta the Himalaya. This is necessarily highly
condensed, and brief reference only is made to the petrological types involved
or their minerals. But the author has some interesting remarks to make in a
concluding chapter (X) upon the ancient Aravelli Range of Peninsular India,
which trends at right angles to the Himalaya, and on its probable relationship
to the latter. The Salt Range, with the controversial Saline Series, is touched
* Except in the author's title, the generally accepted plural, Himalaya, is
used throughout this review.
 Essay Review 87

upon in Chapter III, and E. R. Gee's detailed work is commended; whilst

in Chapter IV the great Karakoram complex, the structural link, as the
author regards it, between Himalaya proper and the Pamir, is reviewed and
sundry workers' findings are cited. Professor A. Desio's views, incidentally,
have been prominent amongst these in recent papers, and his forthcoming
geology of the Karakoram is keenly awaited. His excellent geological map of
the region has already appeared (1964). Space, however, does not permit of
discussion of certain points of difference of interpretation between Desio and
Gansser. For example, Desio has been strongly critical of the work of T. E.
Gattinger (of the Austrian Karakoram Expedition, 1956) in this region, yet
Gansser seems to place some importance in his conclusions. The latter stresses,
and most will probably agree, that the imposing aspect of the Karakoram is
the result of very young morphogenetic movements ; but he regards as
unproven the view that the range definitely represents an important link
between the Hercynian Pamir and the related Alpine Himalaya. The Pamir
has been affected, as he recognizes, by Alpine movements, but probably had
earlier received rather minor Hercynian effects. Such discrepancies, however,
are not easily assessed, either in the Karakoram or in the Himalaya proper.
There follows Chapter V, on the Punjab Himalaya. This covers, as the
author states, perhaps the best known section of the Himalaya, although a
very complicated one. It includes Kashmir and the extraordinary western
Himalayan syntaxis, which has received much publicity through the work of
D. N. Wadia, as outlined in his well-known textbook Geology of India (3rd
edition, London, 1953). But it would seem clear that the whole detailed study
of the Syntaxial Bend has yet to be written, and probably with considerable
contributions by the staff and students of the University of the Punjab at
Lahore. The Sub-Himalaya, with the extensive belt of the Siwaliks, famed for
their vertebrate fossils, and which represent mostly freshwater molasse-like
deposits originating from the rising Himalaya ; also the interesting Karewa
lacustrine beds of Kashmir, resulting from the late rise of the Pir Panjal; and
the great massif of Nanga Parbat (26,660 feet), whose metamorphism had
earlier been the special study of P. Misch, all receive the explicit, though
necessarily summarized, attention of the author. The Tibetan or Tethys
Himalaya of the Punjab are next treated, and the classical work of Sir Henry
Hayden and his successors is reviewed. However, as Professor Gansser
remarks, this extraordinarily interesting and stratigraphically significant
section deserves far more attention than in recent years it has received.
Central Himalaya
The Kumaon Himalaya are given very full treatment in Chapter VI, for in
this central section of the range Gansser and A. Heim had in 1936 made a
notable contribution to a better understanding of the axial structures and
their extension northwards into Tibet (Heim and Gansser: " Central
Himalaya. Geological Observations of the Swiss Expedition, 1936 " ; Mem.
Soc. Helvet. des Sci. Nat., 73, 1939). But the earliest work here goes back to
that eminent Bengal Engineer and surveyor, Capt. Strachey (later Gen. Sir
Richard, F.R.S.), in the 1840s, who constructed a geological section from the
Gangetic Plain northward through Nanda Devi to the River Sutlej in Tibet.
His findings, moreover, stood unamended for nearly 90 years, until J. B.
Auden in the 1930s carried out a remarkable series of traverses south of the
Tibetan border, which first revealed the presence of extensive nappes de
recouvrement and great crystalline thrust-sheets in these mountains. The
important phenomenon of " relief-thrusting " (Heim), and not inversion of
an overfold limb, seems, however, to be applicable to the Main Boundary
Fault here as well as elsewhere along its trace. Certain thrust structures,
however, on and beyond the international border, had in part been anticipated,
though incorrectly interpreted, in the 1890s by Griesbach, by Diener, and also
by von Kraft in 1902. These specific structures are the " exotic blocks " and
the ultrabasic rocks of the remote Kiogar district. This " most problematical
region of the whole Himalaya ", according to Heim and Gansser (1936), has
88 Essay Review

been boldly attacked and partially solved in an outstanding analysis by the

author and Heim. As Sir Edward Bailey in 1944 (Nature, Lond., No. 3920)
declared on hearing of it: " the Kiogar region furnishes the most remarkable
geological monument in the world. It shows a Tibetan thrust-mass, which in
its advance closed the mouths of Himalayan submarine volcanoes, and got
itself riddled with multiple injections as a consequence." Gansser (personal
communication) has considered this a good idea, while not quite fitting the
facts. However, in the book this highly involved and fascinating area is
beautifully illustrated, in fact illuminated, with clearly drawn sections and
superb photographs by both Heim and Gansser. Another achievement by
Gansser alone (although forbidden by the then Government authorities and
later greatly resented by the Tibetans) was the circumperambulation in disguise
in 1936 of the holy Mount Kailas in Tibet. One can well understand the
temptation to risk the wrath of the authorities and visit this spectacular temple-
like mountain of 22,028 feet, sacred both to Buddhists and Hindus, and to
make the traditional pilgrimage—in Gansser's case essentially for geological
purposes (Heim and Gansser, The Throne of the Gods, 1939). As the author
declares, this could only be a rapid reconnaissance, but it revealed amongst
other things, the actual structural border of the Himalaya, and that the mass of
Kailas, standing in the southern Trans-Himalaya, is composed of thick-bedded
conglomerates, considered to be of lowest Eocene age, transgressing on to
hornblende-biotite granite. A north-directed thrust in the vicinity, with
ultrabasic rocks and exotic limestones, emphasizes an undoubted corre-
spondence with the Kiogar and similar areas noted above. Many questions
necessarily arise out of all this, such as age and provenance of the formations,
and the author can, of course, only provide tentative suggestions. But the
locality seems to be separated from the main Himalayan range to the south by
the major tectonic feature of the so-called " Indus Suture Line ", which runs
through the renowned Manasarowar and Raksas Lakes. The reviewer,
incidentally, has a special interest in this central region of the Himalaya by
reason of his own experiences that same year (1936) on Nanda Devi
(25,645 feet) and in its vicinity; he can confirm many of the findings of the
author, especially as to the massif of Nanda Devi in respect of its dominant
sedimentary character, namely phyllites and quartzites, suggesting a shore
facies of the Tethys Sea. But the loss, on the return from the mountain, of his
entire collections of specimens, and a later loss during the War of all his field-
notes, maps, etc., have deprived him of any earlier contribution to the records
now so well presented in this book. Gansser has been good enough (p. 158)
to express his condolences on this loss and on a later similar misfortune
covering his Mount Everest finds.

Nepal Himalaya
In his opening remarks on the Himalaya of Nepal, in Chapter VII, Gansser
pays tribute to the intensive investigations of the Swiss geologist, T. Hagen,
who during ten years from 1950, when working for the Nepalese Government,
accumulated a wealth of geological facts in a country previously virtually
closed to foreigners. Dr. J. B. Auden, of the Indian Geological Survey, was
earlier one of the very few geologists who had had permission to do any work
in Nepal. But the recent opening of the country to mountaineering expeditions
accompanied by geologists, particularly in the Mount Everest district, has
provided important information and also some strongly contrasted views on
the tectonics. For instance, Figs. 103a, b, and c (three cross-sections from
Everest to the Siwaliks, by Hagen, Lombard, and Bordet, respectively)
indicate the rather radically different interpretations of the complicated nappe
structures which seem to be present. From local observations during two
Everest expeditions on the northern (Tibetan) flank of the range, the reviewer
and L. R. Wager (in 1933) could come to no definite conclusions on this
matter of thrust-tectonics versus nappes de recouvrement. Gansser, however,
does not concur with Hagen in regarding the Higher Himalaya, including the
Everest massif, as the root-zone of nappes of the Lower Himalaya. He
 Essay Review 89

considers, moreover, that thrust-structures were dominant, without great

inversions but with important late to post-orogenic granite intrusions in the
Everest region, as well as east and west of it: an occurrence that the reviewer
had recorded in 1938 in the case of Makalu, and which Bordet later confirmed
from the Barun valley in Nepal . This granite is strikingly white, and usually
bears biotite as well as muscovite, while oligoclase is dominant over ortho-
clase. Tourmaline also occurs, often in large sheaves surrounded by white
feldspar borders. It seems to be the latest acid intrusive occurring throughout
the Himalaya, as recognized by Gansser.
As to the Everest section itself, Gansser pays a generous tribute to the
early work of the British geologists accompanying the attempts on the summit,
who had shown that, rather surprisingly, all the upper rocks are of meta-
morphosed sediments: calc-silicate schists, impure marmorised limestones,
siltstones, banded hornfelses, etc., but not of granite as had been previously
surmised. Indeed, the old idea of the existence of an " axial granite core "
throughout the Himalaya, going back to the observations elsewhere in the
range of General C. A. McMahon and F. Stoliczka in the 1880s, seems to die
hard. The reviewer called attention to this misapprehension in the Geological
Magazine in 1943 (80, No. 4). It is exciting and of the greatest interest to see
reproduced two of Gansser's photographs (Nos. 46 and 47) of specimens from
the actual summit of Everest, which show crinoid stems of calcite in a fine-
grained altered limestone. The reviewer's find in 1924 of supposed fossils, at
c. 25,500 feet on the north face of Everest, turned out to be only an unusual
example of " cone-in-cone " structure. The author states (p. 164), however,
that crinoid fragments found by the successful Swiss summit climbers in
1956 do actually support, rather than contradict, the suggested Carboniferous
(to Lower Permian) age earlier assigned to the Everest limestones, on the
grounds that similar rocks to the east were found by L. R. Wager in 1933 to
be overlain by the (Upper) Permian Lachi Series. Unfortunately these crinoid
fragments are not sufficiently well preserved for precise age-determination;
but Wager had long considered that when a date could be unequivocally
arrived at, it should prove a valuable guide in unravelling the structure of the
eastern portion of the Himalaya.
Sikkim, Bhutan, and Eastern Himalaya
In Chapter VIII, entitled " Sikkim-Bhutan Himalaya ", Gansser rightly
emphasizes that the more one moves eastwards along the Himalayan chain,
the more difficult it becomes to undertake geological investigations. Heavier
monsoon conditions, dense jungles and rhododendron growth, as well often as
political restrictions, make field work almost impossible. It was in the practi-
cally unknown Bhutanese region that, as stated above, Gansser had the good
fortune in 1963 to receive permission to make several geological traverses.
Owing to delays in the shipment of his rock-collection from India, however,
he has only been able to give a preliminary account of the chief structures.
But in the area northward from Darjeeling, through Sikkim into Tibet, a fair
amount was already known, from the early writings of Mallet to the discoveries
of Wager in 1933. Notable features are the overthrust of the Siwaliks by the
Damudas (Lower Gondwana), and of the latter by the overlying Daling slates
and schists and the Darjeeling gneisses. Inverted metamorphism is a pheno-
menon of significance here, and Gansser in his discussion of this prefers the
older classical subdivision of Epi-, Meso-, and Kata-metamorphic phases to a
division into mineral fades, on account of the insufficient petrographic data.
These phases, for the pelitic fades, cover a number of rock types, from
chlorite phyllites and sericite schists of the Epi- division, through garnet mica
kyanite and staurolite schists of the Meso- phase, to (garnet) sillimanite
biotite gneisses of the Kata- phase. The question of the local inverted meta-
morphism is recognized by Gansser as a very complicated one, and he cites
the thrust hypothesis of Dyhrenfurth and Wager, and the opposing granite
intrusion theory of Heron and Auden, without coming to a definite conclusion
for this particular area. It is this granite-gneiss that extends northwards to the
90 Essay Review

great massif of Kangchenjunga (28,208 feet), where on sundry surrounding

peaks it is overlain by sediments of the Tibetan Himalaya, which from
Wager's findings in the Tso-Lhamo district of northern Sikkim correspond
with the Everest limestones of Carboniferous to Lower Permian age, as
referred to earlier.
Folded metamorphosed sediments, probably Pre-Cambrian, with north-
ward regional dip, were found by the author to underlie the parts of south-
west and western Bhutan which he traversed. Thrust-faulting was also in
evidence, and farther north and east massive marbles occurred, the whole
being cut by tourmaline granite which, as elsewhere in the Himalaya, was
found to be the youngest intrusive in the whole chain. A short chapter (IX)
on the author's findings in the remote North East Frontier Agency (" NEFA "
Himalaya) completes his survey of this previously unmapped area.
Conclusions
As to the author's conclusions from studies of so vast an area, only a brief
summary can be given. Thrust-tectonics have, of course, long been known in
certain districts from the work of Auden, West, Wadia, and others, and
Gansser has demonstrated the same elsewhere. Principal amongst the main
results are:—
(a) That, contrary to the opinion of some authors, the Siwalik structures
are normal and not a reversed sedimentary column;
(b) The Main Boundary Fault, along the border of the Siwalik molasse, is
more likely to be a thrust which flattens in depth than a steep northward-
dipping fault, as often assumed;
(c) A large percentage of the formations of the Lower Himalaya are made
up of a border fades of the Peninsular Shield, with varying metamorphism
which is restricted in the higher grades to rocks not younger than Ordovician.
The significant phenomenon of " reversed metamorphism " is present in this
unit, and indeed in some sections which are structurally normal;
(rf) In the Higher Himalaya, with its Main Central Thrust, is found
regional metamorphism of crystalline rocks generally decreasing upwards, and
overlain conformably by a fossiliferous series commencing in many places
with the Cambrian. Unlike the Alps, the metamorphism in its higher grades
within the Himalayan range seems to be restricted to Pre-Cambrian rocks;
and it is to be noted, from radiometric measurements so far made, that it
appears that the youngest thermal effects in the Himalaya are markedly later
(at about 10 m.y.) than those of the Alps (at 17 m.y.). Moreover, throughout
this region of the Lower as well as the Higher Himalaya, there occur the
scattered outcrops of the controversial Talchir (Blaini) glacial beds (Fig. 144),
now known to be of Lower Gondwana age, and probably marking the near
proximity of the northern shoreline of Gondwana itself. What memories are
conjured up of Sir Thomas Holland's famous Presidential Address to the
Geological Society in 1933 on the importance of this glacial horizon !
(e) The structures of the Tibetan, or Tethys, Himalaya indicate a general
south-directed movement, partly ofaschuppen character, and with no evidence
of the gravity-slides northward postulated by some authors who have regarded
them as a subsequent phase to the rise of the Himalaya;
(/) Lastly, the important general conclusion that only in the Tibetan
Himalaya is to be found any indication of geosynclinal sedimentation, in a
shallow gradually sinking Tethys Sea. The author's exciting deduction,
therefore, from his extensive observations and studies, is that the main
Himalayan range has not developed from a geosyncline, and consequently it
does not conform to the classical theory of Alpine mountain building, which
has been so widely accepted and applied. Moreover, he emphasizes the
paramount underthrusting of the Indian Shield against the Tibetan mass,
during which large areas of geosynclinal deposits along the borders of the
mass must have been buckled down and disappeared (with the extinction
incidentally of the depositional areas of the unique Kiogar exotic blocks), and
the development of a major tectonic line. Gansser calls the latter the " Indus
 Reviews 91

Suture Line ", which formed along the Upper Indus in Tibet, with, moreover,
its probable eastern extension on the line of the Tsangpo River. It is pertinent
to mention here that the magnetic survey of K. Wienert * in 1938 (not
widely known) clearly indicated that the Tsangpo marks a major tectonic
feature (* Preliminary Report on the Magnetic Results of a Journey to Sikkim
and South Tibet: Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity. John
Hopkins Press, December, 1947). The total crustal shortening of the Himalaya
under regional compression is inferred by Gansser to be about 400 km. This,
however, may be considered a very conservative figure if, as postulated for
example by M. S. Krishnan in his Geology of India and Burma (4th edition,
Madras, 1960), all the crustal folds are to be accounted for between the
Tethys basin and the northern border of the Indian plains.
There are many further fascinating problems, as well as ample grounds for
alternative local tectonic interpretations, that arise out of all these findings;
but Professor Gansser in his detailed investigations has gone a long way in
elucidating so much in so vast and so complex a region. The two excellent
coloured geological maps of the whole Himalayan area (scale 1: 2 m.), and
the tectonic map of the Himalaya in relation to surrounding regions (scale
1:10 m.), together with clearly drawn structural sections and panoramas, as
well as a large number of magnificent photographs, all provide a most valuable
addition to this monumental volume. A map of the major Himalayan
earthquakes, with epicentres and depths to the " Moho " discontinuity, is
included in the text. With few exceptions economic minerals are scanty in
the Himalaya, and it is perhaps excusable that only passing mention is made
of any of them, and mainly in bordering districts.
CLARE COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE.

REVIEWS
GEOLOGICAL DATA PROCESSING. By F. G. SMITH, XV + 284 pp. (Harper's
Geoscience Series.) Harper and Row, New York and London, 1966.
Price $14.00.
This book claims to be about geological data processing but the connection
with geology is obscure. It is actually an elementary introduction to symbolic
logic, Boolean algebra, matrix algebra, elementary calculus, probability
theory, statistics, and the FORTRAN IV programming language for com-
puters. Geology enters the book only where the author has substituted for the
oranges and lemons of the school classroom such words as olivine and gabbro.
Any geologist seeking an introduction to such subjects will find good accounts
of most of them in the Contemporary School Mathematics Series (published
by Edward Arnold, price about 4s. 6d. each) or in the standard textbooks.
Anyone interested in data processing in geology and who purchases this book
on the strength of its title may be disappointed.
J. L. C.

FUNDAMENTALS OF GEOLOGY. By J. J. W. RODGERS and J. A. S. ADAMS.

xix + 424 pp., 313 figures. Harper International Edition. Harper and
Row, New York, Evanston and London ; John Weatherhill Inc., Tokyo ;
1966. Price U.S. $9.75 ; India Rs. 27.00.
This book, designed to cover the field of " physical geology in the classical
sense ", begins, after a short introductory chapter, with three chapters dealing
in some detail with the physical properties of the earth as a whole. These are
followed by four rather perfunctory chapters on the composition of the earth
and the principal classes of rocks. Processes acting at the earth's surface are