GEOLOGY OF THE LOWER AMAZON REGION 725 



The Amazon faunas are regarded by Katzer as Upper Carbonic, 

 with partial extension into the Permic. For the other regions (Chile, 

 Peru, Bolivia) nothing more can be said than that they are Upper 

 Carbonic. It should be mentioned that the latter are far more 

 closely related to those of North America, as Arkansas, Missouri, 

 Kansas, Nebraska, and Nevada, than are these North American 

 regions to those of the Amazon. 



Reviewing the Carbonic and Permic of Asia, Katzer thinks it 

 certain that the Amazon Carbonic is to be correlated with the Schwa- 

 gerina or Ufa stage of the Ural, especially the Hmestone of the Sim 

 region, in part with the uppermost Carbonic of central Russia, and 

 in part, also, with the Artinsk stage. 



While the Amazon region and adjoining lands and nearly all of 

 western South America were covered by the Carbonic sea, the eastern 

 margin and the entire southeastern portion of South America remained 

 land. The Carbonic deposits of the latter regions are of terrestrial 

 origin and in Santa Catharina, Rio Grande do Sul, Uruguay, and 

 Argentina the coal-bearing deposits are well known; but in Parana, 

 Bahia, Piauhy, and apparently also in Maranhao there are plant- 

 bearing Neo- Carbonic beds without known coal-beds. All these 

 deposits, according to Zeiller, belong to about one epoch, namely, 

 Lower Permic or transitional to Permic. The flora is a mixed one 

 and embraces an older Permic flora of the Northern Hemisphere, 

 with elements of the Glossopteris flora of the Southern Hemisphere. 

 This flora lends support to the acceptance of a great Brazil- India- 

 South African and AustraHan continent, known as Gondwana Land, 

 on the northwestern coast of which lay the Amazon sea. At the same 

 time, the eastern Amazon continent was possibly a portion of that 

 bridge over which the southern Brazil floras connected with the 

 European boreal Carbonic. 



At the close of Neo- Carbonic time, the sea of the Lower Amazon 

 retreated, and thereafter the interior of this extended land, as far as 

 observations will permit of judging, was not again subjected to marine 

 deposits. 



Of marine Triassic and Jurassic there is not a trace in the Amazon 

 region, and the same is true of marine Cretacic in the interior of the 

 land. Along the Atlantic coast one only meets with a narrow fringe 



