BRANNER: THE STONE REEFS OF BRAZIL 33 
them as to give them the appearance, as seen from the ocean, of being 
horizontal. 
At low elevations there are at many places a series of sediments newer 
than, and resting unconformably against, the eroded Eocene rocks. 
These beds have yielded no fossils, with the possible exception of certain 
ones near Sáo Thomé on the Bay of Bahia. They are here tentatively 
referred to the Pliocene. The break between the Eocene and Pliocene 
is thus referred with doubt to the Miocene period. This would make 
the stone reefs of the coast of Brazil a part of the Pliocene, or possibly 
of Pleistocene and recent age. Doubts reg: 
arding the exact ages of the 
Tertiar 
у and recent deposits can be removed only by a more careful 
search for fossils and a study of the fossils and of the living fauna of the 
coast, 
The sequence of geologic events in the history of the coast since and 
including Cretaceous time was apparently as follows : — 
: Event. TIME. 
1. The deposition of the Cretaceous sediments during a depres- 
sion of the coast ‹ ети E ее. 
2. Deposition of the Eocene Tertiary sediments in the ocean and 
in fresh water lakes near the coast . LL... . Eocene. 
3. Elevation, and erosion of land surface Vn с MODS 
4. Depression and deposition of the Pliocene sediments . . . Pliocene, 
5. Slight elevation of the coast; erosion Pleistocene 
6. Slight depression of the coast ое to 
7. Elevation amounting to about two metres Recent. 
VOL, XLIV 3 
