THE TRIASSIC PERIOD 689 



others, showing that changes in the relation of land and water were 

 in progress, and that the sea gained on the land toward the close 

 of the epoch. 



The Muschelkalk is a limestone formation and records the 

 further encroachment of the sea. Its fauna has been thought to 

 indicate that the water in which it lived was not the open ocean, 

 but a body of water comparable to the Black sea or the Baltic l . 



The Keuper formation resembles the Bunter, and, like it, is 

 marine in its upper portion, and is followed by the marine beds of 

 the Jurassic period. The Keuper contains a little coal (not work- 

 able), a common accompaniment of shallow-water and marsh 

 formations. 



In England the system is often known as the New Red Sand- 

 stone, though formerly the Permian was also included under this 

 term. It differs from the Trias of Germany chiefly in that the 

 marine member of the German system is absent in England. Both 

 salt and gypsum occur in workable quantities in some parts of 

 England. 



In southern Sweden, the Trias contains coal. The system here 

 was probably once continuous with that of Germany, and may still 

 be, for borings show that it underlies parts of the North German 

 lowland. The Triassic beds of most of Russia are similar to those 

 of western Europe. 



The non-marine formations of red color so characteristic of the 

 Triassic system both in North America and Europe afford another 

 striking inter-continental analogy, and doubtless point to a common 

 cause, or to similar wide-spread conditions. 



Southern Europe. The Alpine or marine phase of the Triassic 

 has its best development in the eastern and southern Alps, and is 

 made up of thick beds of limestone, often dolomitic, alternating with 

 thinner beds of clastic rock. The limestone and dolomite are much 

 more resistant than the associated shales, and as a result, erosion 

 has developed a distinctive topography (Karst topography) at 

 several points in the southern Alps a topography so striking that 

 the localities where it is seen have become the objective point of 

 travel, both for geologists, and for lovers of wild and picturesque 



1 Kayser, op. cit., p. 286. 



