HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE LARAMIE PROBLEM. 



47 



For a decade or more after the publication 

 of the papers above mentioned very little 

 investigation appears to have been prosecuted 

 in the areas covered by the so-called "Laramie," 

 and the subject remained practically as left 

 by the earlier writers. Then, in a valuable 

 paper pubhshed in 1909, by D. B. Dowling,^' 

 on the "Coal fields of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, 

 Alberta, and eastern British Columbia," the 

 "Laramie" was said to embrace the Edmonton 

 and Paskapoo with the significance attached by 

 Tyrrell, from whom extensive quotations were 

 taken. 



Dowling's report was summarized in the 

 report of the Director of the Canadian Geologi- 

 cal Survey,^" who gave a full-page table of 

 correlations of the formations involved, in 

 which the ''Laramie" was assigned the in- 

 terpretation adopted by Dowling. 



In the following year Dowling "'* published a 

 short bulletin on the Edmonton coal field, 

 Alberta, which was devoted mainly to the 

 wonderfully rich coal deposits of the Edmonton 

 formation. The term "Laramie" was not 

 mentioned in this bulletin, but the Edmonton 

 was "classed with the undoubted Cretaceous 

 beds below and represents the upper member 

 of this series." The plants listed, if correctly 

 identified, indicate a mixture of Cretaceous 

 and Tertiary (Fort Union) types. 



In 1913 Malcolm " published a paper on 

 the "Oil and gas prospects of the Northwest 

 Provinces of Canada," in which the Edmonton 

 and Paskapoo weie grouped under the "Lara- 

 mie" with the following qualification: 



In placing under this heading the formations to be 

 described, it is not the intention of the author to indicate 

 in this way the precise age of the formations or to indicate 

 the div-iding line between the great geological systems. 

 The grouping is for convenience in description and for 

 the purpose of showing the stratigraphic relations of the 

 formations. 



There seems, however, to have been no 

 general understanding or usage, and in the 

 Summary Report of the Canada Survey for 

 1913, published in 1914, D. B. Dowling "= had 

 a short paper on the Sheep River gas and oil 

 field of Alberta, in which the Paskapoo was 

 put into the Tertiary and the Edmonton into 



5» Canada Geol. Survey Pub. 1035, pp. 38-)3, 1909. 



» Canada Geol. Survey Summary Rept. for 1909, p. 38, 1910. 



» Dowling, D. B., Canada Geol. Survey Mem. 8E (Pub. 1115), 1910. 



e' Malcolm, Wyatt, Canada Geol. Survey Mem. 29E, 1913. 



« Canada Geol. Survey Summary Rept. for 1913, p. 142, 1914. 



the Cretaceous, but the term "Laramie" was 

 not used. 



In the same volume Bruce Rose "^ had a short 

 paper on the Willowbunch coal area, Saskat- 

 chewan, in which he stated that the only 

 rocks exposed in this area are to be referred to 

 the Fort Union formation, which is essentially 

 the same as the Paskapoo formation of Alberta 

 and is practically continuous with the Fort 

 Union of the United States. 



Barnum Brown"* published a paper in 1914, 

 already mentioned in another connection, 

 which presented the results of his studies for a 

 number of years of the Edmonton formation 

 of the Red Deer River region of Alberta. The 

 splendid section exposed for a distance of 300 

 miles along this river cuts successively through 

 the Paskapoo and Edmonton and well down 

 into the Pierre. The classification adopted 

 was " the latest determination of these forma- 

 tions by the Canadian Geological Survey" 

 and grouped the Paskapoo and Edmonton 

 under the "Laramie." According to Brown, 

 the Edmonton wherever observed was found, 

 resting in apparent conformity on the Pierre. 

 The relations between the Edmonton and the 

 overlying Paskapoo were described by Brown 

 as follows : 



Near the mountains these beds (Paskapoo), according 

 to Tyrrell, appear to rest conformably on the Pierre shales. 

 On the Red Deer River and elsewhere they are separated 

 from the underlying brackish-water Edmonton beds by a 

 widely distributed coal seam of varying thickness. No 

 other sign of unconformity has been recognized, but a 

 considerable time elapsed between the close of the Ed- 

 monton and the beginning of the Paskapoo — a time in- 

 terval represented by all or the greater part of the Lance. 

 No dinosaurs are found in these beds, and the abundant 

 and varied dinosaurs of the underlying Edmonton forma- 

 tion are an older facies than those of the Lance. 



The several lines of paleontologic evidence 

 were discussed somewhat at length, especiall_v 

 the vertebrate evidence, in which Brown is a 

 specialist. Concerning the dinosaur fauna he 

 said: 



The vertebrate fauna is distinct from that of the Lance, 

 and few species are common to the two formations. Most 

 of the Edmonton genera are structurally more primitive 

 than those of the Lance, and several genera not found in 

 the Lance are common to the Judith River. The faunal 

 facies, as a whole, is intermediate but closer to that of the 

 Judith River formation than to the Lance. * * * The 



6S Idem, p. 153. 



6' Cretaceous Eocene correlation in New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana 

 Alberta: Geol. Soc. America Bull., vol. 25, pp. 355-380, 1914. 



