90 



CRETACEOUS ROCKS OE S. INDIA. [PaRT II. § 1. 



Fig, 9. Limestonk on Shales : apparent unconformity. 



^^3x^^ 



Fossils. 



Fossil beds East of Parully. 



Appearances of tHs sort are common, and it is rare that the heds are exposed to a sufficient 

 extent to admit of the deception being detected on the spot. The highest dip that I noticed 

 in any of this false-bedding was 25°, and at only one spot. Most conmionly it did not exceed 

 10° to 12", and the amount dimiaished accordiag as it prevailed over a larger area. High 

 dips -were very local. 



In the limestones of this locality I foimd several specimens of a species of RaclioUte, Corals, 

 and a large species of JVerincea, Sjwndylus, and several univalves, 

 chiefly casts, which I have not identified : also the plates of a 

 species of Cidaris, almost the only Echinid met with in the Ootatoor beds. Some of the 

 limestone bands are very conglomeratic, being full of fragments of gneiss and of the coral-reef 

 limestone, patches of which rest on the gneiss close by, and it is probable that the Nerinseas 

 and corals, which are the same as those occurring in the coral-reef limestone, are also derived 

 from that formation. 



Similar beds of conglomeratic limestone and calcareous grit, abounding in Corah, Nerinmas, 

 Radiolites, and a large Pecten and some fossils more character- 

 istic of the Ootatoor Group, are seen restiag on gneiss to the East 

 of Parully, about a mile an a half Korth-east of Maravuttoor. These beds are very irregular 

 and discontinuous, frequently mere lenticular layers interbedded with white and grey flaky 

 laminated clays, or shales, and fine white sands, also with distinct but probably false 

 bedding. These shales and sands form also the base of the group all round Maravuttoor, and 

 extend for about half a mile to the Eastward. The shales bear a very close resemblance 

 to the plant-beds near Ootatoor, and they are interstratified 

 Plan - e s a ara r. -^ith sands and penetrated with kimkur in a similar manner, 



but after repeated search, I found no trace of plants in them.* Mr. Oldham was, however, 

 more successful, and found specimens of plant remains ill preserved indeed, but, as he 

 informs me, still distinguishable, and evidently identical with those of the Ootatoor plant- 

 beds in some of these shales about half a mile to the North-east of Maravuttoor. They are, 

 however, so far as I could make out, inseparable from the Ootatoor beds, and not, as I at first 

 imagiued, a patch of the true plant-beds cropping out from beneath the Ootatoor beds. (^See 

 above, pages 49 — 52.) 



"Whenever the base of these beds is seen they rest at a high angle against the 

 gneiss, at one spot the dip was as much as 45°, but this only where close to the gneiss, 

 and it was evidently due, as in other similar cases, to the high uicliaation of the rock 

 face on which the bed was deposited. The boimdary here twists about a good deal, 

 and the lamination is so irregulai-, that there appeal's to be no defijiite direction of 



* To the East of the camping groimd they contain several large gneiss boulders which 

 still further enhance their resemblance to the phxnt-beds. 



