GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 179 
ON THE SOUTHERN EXTENSION OF THE MARION AND WELLING- 
TON FORMATIONS. 
BY C. N. GOULD, UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA, NORMAN, OKLA. 
Read before the Academy, at Topeka, December 28, 1900. 
In southern Kansas the Marion and Wellington formations include all the 
upper Paleozoic rocks between the top of the Flint hills and the base of the 
Red Beds; or, in other words, between the Chase of Prosser! and the Harper of 
Cragin.” According to Cragin’s classification, these two formations are included 
in the upper or Sumner division of the Big Blue series, immediately subjacent 
to the Cimarron series. 
The lower or Marion formation, as first described by Prosser,* consists of 
some 400 feet of rather soft gray or buff, fossiliferous limestone, alternating with 
variously colored shales and marls. The name is from Marion county, where the 
formation is well exposed. To the rocks comprising approximately the same 
formation Cragin afterward applied the term ‘‘Geuda salt measures.’’! By the law 
of priority, however, the first name has continued to be used, and the latter 
has been dropped from the nomenclature of the region. It is in the Marion that. 
the magnificent salt beds of central Kansas occur, and it is the leaching out of 
the brine from these beds as they approach the surface to the east that produces 
the salt-springs and wells along the line of outcrops. Of these, the Geuda springs 
are perhaps the most noted. The limestones of the lower part of the Marion con- 
tain the most typical Permian fauna to be found in the West. 
The term ‘‘ Wellington’’ was first applied by Cragin’ to the shales formerly de- 
scribed under the term ‘‘gray shales’? by Robert Hay. Professor Hay used the 
term in contradistinction to the ‘‘red shales’’ of the Red Beds further west.® 
The Wellington, as described by Cragin, consists of several hundred feet of gray, 
red, green and blue shales and clays, containing occasional impregnations of salt, 
gypsum, and dolomite. The line of separation between the Marion and Welling- 
ton has never been sharply demarked. The same difficulties are encountered 
here as in the classification of the various formations of the Red Beds, viz.: ab- 
sence of fossils, and such gradual change in the lithological character of the rock 
that hard-and-fast lines may rarely be drawn. 
The line of separation between the Wellington and Harper, in other words, 
between the Big Blue and the Cimarron, is perhaps more easily located. The 
change from the gray and blue shales of the former to the prevailingly red sand- 
stone of the latter is comparatively rapid, and in not a few localities the line of 
division may be definitely located. In a paper describing the stratigraphy of 
the region of McCann’s quarry, near Nardin, Okla.,’ in which fossils were first 
found in the Kansas-Oklahoma Red Beds, this fact was emphasized. In this 
region the green, gray and blue shales of the Wellington are succeeded by a fos- 
siliferous ledge of sandstone three to six feet thick. This ledge, known as the 
McCann sandstone, is considered the basal member of the Harper, or Cimarron, 
series. The ledge contains vertebrates, invertebrates, and leaves. The McCann 
sandstone may be traced for a number of miles througuout Kay and Noble coun- 
ties, Oklahoma, and serves as a guide for the stratigraphical work of the region. 
. Journal of Geology, vol. III, No. 7, pp. 771-786. 1895. 
. Colorado College Studies, vol. VI, pp. 18-20. 1896. 
. Loe. cit., pp. 786-789. 4. Loc. cit, p. 9. 
. Loc cit., p. 16. 
. Seventh Biennial Report Kans. St, Bd. of Agr., pt. II, p. 87. 
. Kans, Univ. Quart., 1900, pp. 175-177. 
AQ ow 
