FORMATIONS AND PHYSICAL HISTORY 545 



crystalline schists with no Lower Cretaceous beds beneath, so fur us 

 IHI\V known. 



South America. In South America the sea invaded eastern 

 Bra/il, where marine Upper Cretaceous beds cover and overlap the 

 non-marine Lower Cretaceous. In some parts of Brazil, however, 

 the Upper Cretaceous is represented by fresh-water beds only. 

 Further west, marine Upper Cretaceous beds rest unconformably 

 on the Lower Cretaceous, and form the summits of parts of the 

 eastern Andes, occurring up to altitudes of 14,000 feet at many 

 points, and locally even higher. There appears to have been great 

 volcanic activity in the Andean system (Chile and Peru) during the 

 luti- Cretaceous. 



Australia. The phenomena of Australia are in harmony with 

 those of other continents. The Upper Cretaceous beds are wide- 

 spread, locally resting on formations older than the Lower Creta- 

 ceous. Furthermore, the Upper Cretaceous (Desert sandstone) is 

 in many places unconformable on the deformed Lower Cretaceous. 



General. In general it may be said that there was little marine 

 sedimentation in the Late Cretaceous period north of the parallel 

 60 north, where the Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous systems are 

 mo re widespread. Between the parallels of 20 and 60, on the 

 other hand, the zone where marine Lower Cretaceous is but slightly 

 developed, the Upper Cretaceous system is widespread. Outside 

 of China, the Upper Cretaceous system is wanting over no consider- 

 able land-area within these limits. In the equatorial and south 

 temperate zones, the Upper Cretaceous seas were also expanded 

 much beyond the limits of the waters of the preceding period. 



Climate 



The climate of North America throughout most of the Creta- 

 ceous period seems to have been rather uniform and warm through 

 a great range of latitude. In Greenland, Alaska, and Spitz- 

 biT.^en, climatic conditions seem to have been similar to those 

 in Virginia. Toward the close of the period the temperature was 

 perhaps lower, for the Laramie flora is a temperate, rather than a 

 tropical, one. The fresh-water fossils of central Europe indicate a 

 climate comparable to that of Malaysia. As this seems to have 

 been a period of low land, widely extended epicontinental seas, 

 extensive calcareous deposits, and slow consumption of carbon 



