A GEOLOGICAL RECONNAISSANCE IN HAITI ig 
country and in its southern part, where erosion has dissected it, 
presents in places the appearance of ‘‘bad”’ lands. 
STRATIGRAPHY 
A. PRE-TERTIARY ROCKS 
Old Complex.—The Gran Cordillera of Santo Domingo consist 
essentially of a series of metamorphosed shales, sandstones, and 
conglomerates with extensive areas, or belts, of syenite. Gabb* 
called the metamorphosed series the Sierra group. Most of these 
sedimentary rocks are highly schistose. The structure, where 
decipherable, is complicated, forming even fan folds. Structural 
axes are parallel with the axis of the range. 
These rocks are exposed over much of the north range of Haiti 
and generally lie on either side of a central intrusive belt. Tippen- 
hauer’s mapping of these areas is generally correct. Smaller areas 
of these rocks occur in valleys cut in the range of the Montagnes 
Noires. The age of these rocks is unknown. Gabb? called them 
Cretaceous, and Tippenhauer, Eocene. Both are probably wrong. 
The limestones from which Gabb collected Ammonites in Santo 
Domingo are undoubtedly unconformable with the schistose series. 
P. Frasor as early as 1888 argued an Archean age for these rocks.$ 
The same series appear in Cuba and there form the base for all 
subsequent formations. In Porto Rico, Berkey’s ‘‘Older Series,’”4 
which he calls Cretaceous, are without doubt the same as the Haiti— 
Santo Domingo rocks though less metamorphosed. Some of the 
limestones and tuffs described by Berkey, especially his Coamo 
limestone, may be Cretaceous and correspond to Gabb’s Cretaceous. 
Berkey’s cross-section shows this Coamo member in such position 
that there may well be an unconformity at its base. Gabb appar- 
ently found a limestone member in the schist series and near by 
he found a limestone containing Ammonites and still in the same 
vicinity he found great thicknesses of limestone which are without 
MOP Ci. Pp. O3e 2 Op. cit., p. 87. 
3 American Geologist, XXI (1808), 250 (citing earlier statement). 
4C. P. Berkey, ‘‘Geological Reconnaissance of Porto Rico,” New York Acad. Sci., 
Annals, XXVI (1915), 1-70. 
