30 KING : COASTAL REGION OF THE GODAVARI DISTRICT. 



I should have distinguished the present beds as three groups in the 

 area between the Godavari and the Tammiler ; and I should certainly 

 have been inclined to look on the whole series as very possibly repre- 

 sented by some of the Rajmahal beds to the south. 



The want of evidence as to strong stratigraphical breaks, though a 

 great loss, is, as will be seen later on, common more or less to the whole 

 series of formations in this area, from the Rajmahals of Gollapili up to 

 and including the Rajahmundry sandstones, which represent a period 

 ranging from, say, middle mesozoic times up to middle eocene ; for there 

 is no greater show of unconformity — except by overlap — between the 

 Tripati sandstones, the infratrappeans, the traps and intertrappeans 

 and the Rajahmundry beds, than there is between the groups now in 

 question. 



There is, however, the lithological difference, there is also overlap, 

 and, as I have endeavoured to show, there is some ground for looking on 

 the Ragavapuram shales as overlying an unevenly worn surface of the 

 Gollapili group — in fact, that the latter are perhaps more separable from 

 the former than these are from the Tripati beds. 



The fossil evidence, as far as it goes, is tolerably decisive as to the 

 separation of the groups. Only two plants of the Gollapili beds occur 

 in the Ragavapuram shales j and there is the entirely new feature of 

 these shales being distinguished by a marine fauna. Of course, it is 

 quite possible that the Gollapili beds may have been deposited in salt- 

 water, or rather, close to the shore ; but considerable changes must have 

 taken place in the area of that sea and the adjoining land before the 

 shales and their pelagic remains could have been deposited. In the 

 succeeding group there are no recognisable plant remains ; but its repre- 

 sentative at Ayaparaz-Kotapili is remarkably distinct in the facies of 

 its fauna, which has two fossils, Trigonia venlricosa (very common) and 

 T. smeei, which are common to the Umia beds of Kutch ; and its beds, 

 like those at the eastern extremity of the Tripati outcrop, are lying 

 directly on the gneiss. 



( 230 ) 



