Feb., 1911.] Literature on Geology of South America. 283 



Cretaceous. The Cretaceous deposits are wide-spread in 

 South America and represent a notable encroachment of the sea 

 upon the continent. "Marine Cretaceous fossils are found in 

 nearly all parts of the Cordillera from South Patagonia to East 

 Venezuela" and a rich marine fauna has also been discovered in 

 the Cretaceous formations of east Brazil. ^- 



" Certain of the characteristic Lower Cretaceous fossils of the 

 North reappear in the South. The famous genus Aucella, widely 

 distributed on the slopes of the North Pacific, has been recently 

 mentioned by N. Ritin from Mexico; by White from Brazil; and I 

 (Steinmann) know it also from the environs of Lima associated 

 with Ammonites of the Neocomian of Europe.""*^ 



The undoubted marine deposits of the central part of South 

 America disappear to the north and the south and are replaced by 

 sandy deposits without marine fossils. "Probably a great part 

 of the red sandstone formations which occur in Brazil, Venezuela, 

 Bolivia, and in the north of the Argentine Republic, take the 

 same place relative to the marine sediments as do the Atlanto- 

 saurus beds, the Trinity and Tuscaloosa fomiations in North 

 America."^-* 



The Ammonite-bearing beds of the Lower Cretaceous in 

 Patagonia,'*^ Peru, Venezuela'^'' and Columbia'^^, have been worked 

 out in detail. Gerhardt refers these beds to the European hori- 

 zons, Neocom (?), Barremien, Aptien, and Albien. The beds 

 consist of dark blue limestone interbedded with quartzite, white 

 and red sandstones. In Patagonia these beds have a rather 

 limited distribution and are overlain unconfomiably (?) by the 

 Dinosaur beds.'*^ These latter consist of red sandstones, con- 

 glomerates, with clays, marls and volcanic tuffs. 



On the Pacific coast of south Chili glauconitic sandstones are 

 found which contain a rich fauna of the uppermost Cretaceous. 

 This is especially shown on the Island of Quiriquina. "Besides 

 many Ammonites and Baculites, partly identical with those from 

 south India, this fauna is characterized by the abundance of Gas- 

 tropods of Tertiary type. The Cretaceous beds are covered 

 conformably by a lignitic formation whose fauna does not contain 

 the Cretaceous fossils; but startigraphically both formations are 



42. Steinmann. Gustav, loc. cit., p. 858. 

 4.3. Steinmann, Gustav, loc. cit., p. 8.58. 



44. Steinmann, Gustav, loc. cit., p. 8.58. 



45. Faru, Francois, Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, Geologic, und 

 Palaeontologie, Vol. XXV (Beilage Band), 1908, pp. 601-647. 



46. Gerhardt, K. Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, Geologic, und 

 Palaeontologie, Vol. XI (Beilage Band), 1897-8, pp. 65-117. 



47. Gerhardt, K., loc. cit., pp. 118-208. 



48. Roth, Santiago, Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, Geologic, und 

 Palaeontologie, Vol. XXVI (Beilage Band), 1908, pp. 94-118. 



