696 G. M. MURGOCI 



G. THE PONTIC STAGE 



While we find Pontic formations with a well-marked fauna, north- 

 ward from the Slatioara anticline, it would appear that they do not 

 exist northward from the Ocnele mari anticline. At Fundatura, 

 Smeuretu and Cacova we meet with some thick shingle beds without 

 fossils and with a torrential character. They lie on top of the con- 

 glomerates with shales and conchiliferous limestone of Titireciu, in 

 which I found Dosinia exoleta and Modiola volhynica var. minor, 

 indicating the uppermost Sarmatian, perhaps the Mceotic, so that, 

 at all events, the highest shingle may be Mceotic or perhaps Pontic, 

 but without certainty. To the west of the salt region the Pontic 

 beds, after forming a bend around the Magura Slatioara island, are 

 prolonged eastward as a gulf extending up to Bistrita Massif and the 

 Carpathian Mountains. As to facies, the Pontic deposits are very 

 variable. Along the skirt of the mountains and at Magura Slatioara 

 they retain the facies of the cones of dejection, as did the Tortonian 

 and Sarmatian deposits. It is of interest that in the lower strata of 

 the Pontic, at Coada Magura, in the sandy marls intercalated between 

 conglomerates and shingle, I have found Helicidae, which would 

 indicate the presence of dry land in the vicinity. Teisseyre and 

 others consider the Helix layers as Mceotic. 



Southward from Slatioara we have a uniform zone of yellow sand, 

 with greenish or bluish marls and clays, and a seam of lignite, etc., 

 which comes from the east, from Arges, and runs westward parallel 

 to the skirt of the mountains, right up to the Danube in Mehedinti. 

 In the Subcarpathian region, from Horezu westward up to Baia de 

 Arama and even farther, the facies of marls, with small sand beds as 

 bands, is the predominant one. At Novaci, Aninis, Porceni, etc., 

 along the skirt of the mountain, we can convince ourselves that this 

 facies is the somewhat distant continuation of the sand and shingle 

 conglomerates of the cones of dejection. This is an important fact 

 which explains to us the orographical and hydrographical conditions 

 under which these formations, and the similar ones in the Sarmatian 

 salt formation and even Burdigalian strata, have been deposited. 



The thickness of this facies is enormous, and constant in the Jiu 

 valley and west of it. All the rivers — Gilortu, Jiu, Bistrita, and 

 their affluents — have cut their beds deep into this formation. At 



