606 STKATIGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY 



clays which have a thickness of more than 300 feet. The 

 prevalent shells are species of Congeria, C. conglobosa occurring 

 in the lower part, with G. triangularis and C. rhomboidea in 

 higher beds, with species of the peculiar Cardiidaa Adacna and 

 Monodacna like those of the Caspian Sea. These Congeria Beds 

 extend eastward through Hungary, Croatia, Roumania, and 

 Southern Russia to the Caspian Sea and Lake Aral, which lakes, 

 together with the Black Sea, may be regarded as remnants of 

 the ancient and much larger Pontian Sea. 



In Greece the Pikermi Beds are a lacustrine deposit of the same 

 age ; they consist chiefly of red marly clays with land and fresh- 

 water shells, varied by layers of sandy marl and lenticular beds of 

 pebbles ; in the clays are several layers of mammalian bones. 25 

 These beds are part of a formation which has a wide extension in 

 Attica and is regarded by Fuchs as of Pliocene (not Miocene) age, 

 as the freshwater beds overlie deposits which contain marine shells 

 of Pliocene species (Pecten benedictus, Ostrea undata, and 0. lamellosa). 

 The bones are mostly separate and some are broken, but many 

 complete limbs occur with the bones in their natural position, as 

 if they had been washed down from higher ground during heavy 

 floods. The principal members of this fauna have been mentioned 

 on p. 588. Similar deposits have been found in Eubcea and in 

 the island of Samos. 



Placentian. In Austria the Pontian Clays are succeeded by 

 some lacustrine beds with land and freshwater shells, but these are 

 more fully developed in Croatia, Roumania, and Bulgaria, where 

 they are known as the Paludina Beds. The lower part of these 

 contain smooth rounded forms of Viviparus ( Paludina), but in 

 the higher beds they are carinated. Mastodon arvernensis has 

 been found in the lower beds. Similar beds extend through 

 Southern Russia to the Caspian Sea and are well exposed near 

 Odessa, where beds containing Prosodacna and Dreissensia overlie 

 the Congeria Beds and are themselves succeeded by the " Paludina 

 Beds." 



Astian and Sicilian. Newer Pliocene deposits, both of 

 marine and lacustrine origin, occur at different places all over the 

 same eastern region, and marine Pliocene Beds occur also in Cyprus 

 and Asia Minor, but their stratigraphy has not yet been sufficiently 

 investigated for the recognition of stages or zones. 



5. Germany 



No marine Pliocene deposits occur in Germany, but at 

 Eppelsheim near Worms there are sands and gravels, overlying 

 .Miocene Beds, which have yielded a Pliocene mammalian fauna 





