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Vou. 111] ANDERSON—NEOCENE DEPOSITS OF KERN RIVER 103 
CORRELATION OF DEPOSITS 
In a recent paper on the Geologic Record of California,’ 
Dr. J. Perrin Smith has made a tabulated statement of the 
recognized sedimentary groups of California, including a sum- 
mary, and tentative correlation of the formations that have 
thus far been described in the Neocene deposits. This is 
undoubtedly the most concise and satisfactory statement that 
has yet appeared of the progress made upon the correlation of 
the Neocene in California, though it evidently leaves much to 
be settled. The standard column of the Neocene is still a 
debatable subject, and will probably remain so for some years. 
As shown in former papers bearing upon the stratigraphy 
of the valley borders, and as shown also in the tabular sum- 
mary of Dr. Smith, here reprinted, there are, in the Mt. Diablo 
Range taken as a whole, all of the horizons of the Neocene, 
or their equivalents, that are to be found in any part of the 
coast, or in other words, all that are required for a complete 
section; though there are few places, if any, in which they are 
all present in recognizable form. At one point the lower, at 
another the middle, and at still another the upper members of 
the series are more fully developed. In the Kern River region 
if all of the members are present, they have not been recog- 
nized, and there appears to be the same incompleteness of 
section. © 
While it is possible or perhaps easy to identify some of the 
beds with members of a standard column, it is at present not 
safe to attempt a complete correlation of the several groups 
in the Kern River Neocene with those even of the Mt. Diablo 
Range. There is great variability in both the lithology and 
the faunas of contemporary beds even within the limits of the 
basin here concerned. For example, the Neocene deposits on 
the west side of the valley near the Temblor ranch and near 
Sunset have a thickness estimated at more than 6000 feet, 
consisting chiefly of shales which are largely organic. The 
contemporaneous strata near the Kern River attain hardly 
more than half this thickness, and are mainly of sandy detritus, 
with beds of ash and a minor part of shale, not exclusively 
organic. On the west side of the valley the beds are fossilifer- 
1 Jour. Geol., v. 18, 1910, pp. 216-227. 
