194 proceedings: geological society 



J. Wayland Vaughan: Significance of reef coral fauna at Carrizo 

 Creek, Imperial County, California. The paper gave a brief presenta- 

 tion of the zoogeographic relations of the fossil coral fauna of Carrizo 

 Creek, showing the fauna to be related to the faunas of Pliocene and 

 post-Pliocene age in Florida and the West Indies and on the eastern 

 coast of Central America. The geologic history of the Tertiary coral 

 faunas of the southeastern United States, the West Indies, and Cen- 

 tral America was summarized. The conclusion was announced that 

 subsequent to the uplift which separated the Atlantic and Pacific oceans 

 at the close of Apalachicolan (upper Oligocene) time, there was during 

 late Miocene or Pliocene time connection between the Atlantic and 

 Pacific oceans, perhaps in the vicinity of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, 

 and that the Atlantic coral fauna extended up to the head of the Gulf 

 of California. Factors not clearly understood excluded the Pacific 

 fauna from this area. 



Discussed by Mendenhall, Bartsch, and Macdonald. 



The 314th meeting was held at the Cosmos Club, January 24, 1917. 



INFORMAL COMMUNICATIONS 



A. L. Day: Cooling of a lava surface. On the basis of computations 

 by C. E. Van Orstrand the bottoms of cracks 3 to 5 feet deep in the sur- 

 face of an extruded lava should be glowing hot several days after the 

 extrusion. Observers at Lassen Peak a few days after the recent erup- 

 tion did not report any glow in the cracks. 



Discussion: Sidney Paige described and submitted a large speci- 

 men as evidence of plasticity of the recent lava at Lassen Peak. 



regular program 



Arthur J. Collier: Age of the high gravels of the Northern Great 

 Plains. The area discussed extends along the south side of the inter- 

 national boundary, from Redstone, 30 miles west of the North Dakota 

 line, to Boundary Plateau, a distance of 175 miles. From Boundary 

 Plateau it extends northwest to include the Cypress Hills, where the 

 Canadian Geological Survey, in the years 1883, 1884, and 1904, collected 

 fossils from Bone Coulee, which are Oligocene and equivalent to the 

 White River in age. The formation is composed of more or less cemented 

 gravel, sand, clay, and marl characterized by water-worn quartzite 

 pebbles from the Rocky Mountains. It rests on a plateau whose ele- 

 vation above tide is 4800 feet at its west end and 3700 feet at its east 

 end, near Bone Coulee. 



During the past two field seasons the United States Geological Sur- 

 vey has made an investigation of the lignite resources of the region, in 

 the course of which fragments of vertebrate remains were collected from 

 27 localities. These fragments, which came from wells, railroad cuts, 

 badger holes, and natural exposures, have been submitted to Dr. J. 

 W. Gidley, who reports that they can not be older than Miocene nor 

 younger than Lower Pliocene. The formation called the Flaxville, 



