ASIA AND MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. 31 



that the bulk of these basic rocks were intruded during the widespread folding in early Miocene 

 times, to which is due the general unconformity between Oligocene and Miocene rocks. Numer- 

 ous pebbles of serpentine occur in the Tortonian beds. In northern Syria, Finckh ('98) con- 

 cludes from Blackenhorn's investigations that the main eruption of the ultrabasic and basic 

 rocks was between Cretaceous and Eocene and was continued into the latter period. They 

 occur only in the folded region north of the Orontes, not in the plateau to the south. An 

 extensive petrographic study of gabbros and of the origin of serpentine is given by this author. 

 Philippson ('18), whose important work came to hand after the above was written, remarks 

 on the wide distribution of the gabbro-peridotite rocks in Asia Minor, and their close association 

 with the Eocene rocks. He assigns to a post-Eocene age the basic intrusions in the outermost 

 Taurus- Cyprus zone of folding, of which Kober's ('15) study is noteworthy. Figure 8a herewith 

 has been taken from Kober's ('21) summary of it. Philippson, however, notes that in the north- 

 ern zone of basic and ultrabasic intrusions in Karia and Lycia, though the serpentine appears 

 to overlie Eocene rocks, it is also apparently overlain by Mesozoic limestone, detritus derived 

 from the same occurs in Eocene sediments. He considers, therefore, that its present position 

 is due to overthrusting and that the actual eruption of the peridotites, etc., here occurred in 

 Mesozoic (possibly Jurassic) times. 



Had'i'm . Mor'osd , Aintob 



A[)[>™> imatt ocolt a Miles 



EZ3 I F^ 2 [ZZJ 3 j gggl 4 ^M 5 ^M 6 rrrrn 7 g^ 8 Wm 9 ? 1 . . — _2? 



Fig. 8a.— Section across the Taurus Mountains and the plateau of Northern Syria. (After L. Kober.) 



1. Crystalline schists, etc. 



2. Paleozoic slates. 



3. Paleozoic limestone. 



4. Cretaceous and Eocene limestone. 



5. Cretaceous and Eocene "Flysch" (sandstone, etc.). 



6. Serpentine. 



7. Miocene (?). 



8. Cretaceous and Eocene sediments. 



9. Basalt. 



The zones of folding continue southeasterly into Persia, but the only intrusive masses 

 of serpentine known are those occurring among the pre-Devonian gneisses and granite near 

 Anarek (Stahl '11), but in the northeast of Arabia a sUl-like mass of gabbro and dolerite with 

 serpentine of post-Triassic age is found in very disturbed sediments near Muscat. The sheet 

 of igneous rocks is unconformably overlain by Upper Cretaceous rocks (Pilgrim '08). There 

 is another group of intrusions near the northern boundary of Beloochistan running to the 

 northeast of Quetta for about 60 miles. They are sill-like in character, and form a mass some- 

 times 8 miles in width, lying in Senonian beds (Vredenburg '04). They here join a long arc 

 of folded mountains which extends northward from Kurrachi toward Kalat. In these there 

 occur enormous intrusive masses of basalt and dolerite with interspersed ash-beds and ser- 

 pentine lying within the Upper Cretaceous sandstones. Vredenburg ('09) considers that those 

 are the result of intrusion in the geosynclinal area about the Peninsula massif, coeval with 

 the outpouring of the Deccan traps. His detaded account of these is not yet avadable, and 

 the conditions under which the intrusions took place remain obscure. According to Vredenburg 

 ('10) they are represented also by the peridotites and gabbros at Ladakh, described by 

 McMahon ('01), though the latter considers they are only accidentally associated with the 

 basalts and agglomerates in which they occur, which he supposed to be Tertiary. 



Krafft ('02) described a great series of exotic blocks of Thibetan origin near Balchdura, 

 included in andesitic or diabasic rocks, often amygdaloidal, among which a little serpentine occurs. 

 They have partly the appearance of flows, partly of agglomerates. The included blocks are 

 of all sizes up to mountainous masses. The whole complex lies on Cretaceous Flysch, but as 

 this contains no intrusions from which the overlying volcanic material might be derived, the 

 source of this discharge must also have been outside the region, and Suess concludes (IV, p. 



