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59 Structure and Minerals The whole central range resembles the other great mountain chains of the world in that it is a great mass of folded mountains, which arose at the same time as the Alps of Europe, the Himalayas of Asia and the Rockies of North America. It is a type of Tertiary folded mountain chain. In between these folded mountains are blocks of ancient rocks which are said to be extremely rich in metallic minerals. Besides gold, silver, iron, copper, lead, coal, chrome and other useful metals, the country possesses some potentially good oil-fields, mostly situated north of the Hindukush, in the vicinity of Herat, Saripul, Maimanah, Shibarghan and Taluqan. Afghanistan's reserves of coal are no less than 20,000,000 tons and its reserves of high grade iron are about 3,000,000 tons. This is based on the statement of Mr. C. Watson Owings, American mining engineer, whose services were provided to the Afghan Government by the United States Technical Cooperation Administration. The figure of 20,000,000 tons is for known coal reserves. Mr. Owings believes that complete geological exploration of the country would result in the discovery of reserves much larger than this. The largest coal reserves are around Darrah-i-Soof, about 100 miles south of Mazar-i-Sharif. Reserves here are not less than 14,500,000 tons. Mr. Owings says: "Judging from surface out-croppings, the tonnage may be twice as large. About half the coal in these seams appears to be in the Tor Valley, and half of it seems to be hard lump coal of high heating value".