VOLUME XXVIII NUMBER 5 



THE 



r 



JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY 



JULY-AUGUST igzo 



RECENT STUDIES OF THE UPPER CRETACEOUS 

 OF TENNESSEE^ 



BRUCE WADE 



Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 



After an interruption of two years, due to the recent war. the 

 Tennessee Geological Survey has taken up again the study of the 

 Upper Cretaceous series of West Tennessee, an investigation 

 inaugurated in 1915 under the late Dr. A. H. Purdue. The field 

 studies, collections, and surveys necessary for this investigation 

 are now more than three-fourths complete, and it is the purpose of 

 this short paper to give an abstract of the general areal and strati- 

 graphic geology of the region, to touch lightly on the large well- 

 preserved Ripley fauna discovered in the southern part of the 

 state in 19 15, and to announce the discovery in 1919 of a large and 

 important Ripley flora in the northern part of the state. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



The first adequate map and separation of the Upper Cretaceous 

 series of Tennessee into formational units was published by Safford^ 

 in 1869. Troost and others had previously written a little of the 

 Cretaceous of this state but had not definitely described the forma- 

 tions. Safford's work was based on faunal and lithologic studies 



' Published by the permission of Wilbur A. Nelson, State Geologist of Tennessee. 

 ^ J. M. Safford, Geology of Tennessee, Nashville, 1869, map and pp. 410-21. 



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