The Khewra Salt Mine is excavated within the base of a thick layer of highly folded, faulted, and stretched Ediacaran to early Cambrian evaporites of the Salt Range Formation. This geological formation consists of a basal layer of crystalline halite, which is intercalated with potash salts. This basal layer is overlain by gypsiferous marl, which is covered by interlayered beds of gypsum and dolomite with infrequent seams of oil shale. These strata are overlain by of Neoproterozoic to Eocene sedimentary rocks that have been uplifted and eroded along with the Salt Range Formation to create the Salt Range at the southern edge of the Pothohar Plateau. The Ediacaran to early Cambrian evaporites of the Salt Range Formation have been thrust southward over Neoproterozoic to Eocene sedimentary rocks by many kilometers, which tectonically incorporated fragments of the underlying younger strata within these evaporites. The Salt Range is the southern edge of a well-described fold-and-thrust belt, which underlies the entire Pothohar Plateau and developed south of the Himalayas as a result of ongoing collision between India and Eurasia.