The Cablac Limestone

Audley-Charles (1968) mapped the Cablac Mountain as massive shallow-water Cablac Formation and identified as Lower Miocene in age. and after few years, Carter et al (1976) and Charlton (2002) also identified following Audley-Charles’s interpretation.

Cablac Mountain Range is formed a massif limestone. It characterizes a thrust sheet stuck that dominated by Triassic to Paleogene limestone belong to the Gondwana and Australian-Margin Megasequence (Haig et al, 2007; Haig & McCartain, 2007).

The Cablac Mountain is composed of breccia as a rock fragment and clasts contain peloid  and

oolitic limestone of the Upper Triassic – Lower Jurassic (Haig et al, 2007).

The Kulau Limestone (Permian In Age)

The Kulau Limestone is part of Gondwana Megasequnce. The Kulau limestone contain mostly dominated by Fusulinid, Crinoid, and Bryzoa part of the permian in age.

Fusulinids were elements of warm-water photozoan fauna during the Permian and are absent from cold-water carbonates composed of heterozoan facies ( James, 1997)

Wailuli Formation ( Jurassic In Age)

Theofilo stand on the Wailuli Formation, This Picture was taken in Sahem River, Soibada, Manatuto District.

Description :
The Wailuli Formation was defined by Audley-Charles (1968) for rocks in the Wailuli valley, Ainaro district, which predominantly consists of shale sandstone lithofacies.

Brunnschweiler (1978) has contested the upper age limit of the Wailuli Formation and suggested a Late Jurassic on the basis of Belemnopsis he reported from Atsabe area.

Wanner (1956) and Grunau (1957) have recorded the presence of Buchia, Belemnopsis and Malayomaorica malayomaorica (Krumbeck) in Aliambata and Pualaca, the areas that have been mapped as Wailuli Formation by Audley-Charles (1968).

At the type locality the Wailuli Formation is defined by the first appearance of well bedded, spotted blue-grey marls and calcilutites with ammonites (Audley-Charles 1968).

The thickness of the Wailuli Formation in East Timor is estimated to be about 800 meters in the type locality and elsewhere is thought to be probably 1000 meter (Audley-Charles 1968). 

               From Left ( Prof.David Haig, Noemia, maun Jose Tilman, Manuel, Ivonio, Francisco)

Ammonoid locality which well exposed within wailuli Formation in the Sahem River, Soibada Area.

Locality Outcrop of wailuli Formation which was well exposed and logged in Sahem River, Soibada Area

Babulu Formation ( Triassic In Age)

Description :

Based on the organic-cemented agglutinated foraminifera by Haig and McCartain (2010) suggest the age of the Babulu Formation as Middle to Late Triassic (Anisian to Carnian).

The Babulu Formation was first described by Giani (1971) as a member of the Aitutu Formation based on rocks exposed in the river Babulu, Belu area, West Timor.


The Babulu Formation is a sequence of well-bedded sandstone, shale and subordinate limestone and marls (Giani 1971, Bird & Cook 1991).

Giani (1971) measured a 12 m sequence composed of shale-sandstone in Babulu River. However, Bird and Cook (1991) estimated 1500 m thick for this formation in Kekneno area.

Aitutu Formation ( Triassic In age)

The thick locality Aitutu Formation outcrop, which is well exposed in Soibada, Sahe River, bedding between wackestone and black shale. Halobiid and other bivalves are commonly found on the bedding planes. Some bioturbation with burrows infilled in the mudstone.
Aitutu Formation was first introduced by (Audley-Charles 1968) to accommodate rocks of the Middle to Late Triassic age in East Timor. 

Timor Leste Geology map

                            Practice Digitizing East Timor Geological map with Gobal Mapper

East Timor Halobia Fossil

Description :

This Halobia fossil was taken in Hato-builico, Ainaro District, East Timor, Middle Triassic in age.