BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 

 Vol. 28, pp. 933-944, PLS. 47-48 DECEMBER 19, 1917 



CHEMICAL AND ORGANIC DEPOSITS OF THE SEA ^ 



BY THOMAS WAYLAID VAUGHAN 



{Presented before the Society December 29, 1916) 



CONTENTS 



Page 



['; induction 933 



CI cmical deposits 934 



Organic deposits 988 



Conclusion 944 



Explanation of plates 944 



Introduction 



As the discussion of this subject is necessarily brief, no attempt will be 

 made to review the classification of organic and chemical deposits ad- 

 vanced by Murray and Eenard in the Challenger reports, and I will im- 

 mediately pass to the consideration of some of the results obtained from 

 researches made during the past ten years. My remarks will be for the 

 most part confined to the discussion of deposits formed in water less than 

 100 fathoms deep, because recent investigation has been chiefly directed 

 to these and because the geologist usually encounters relatively shallow- 

 water sediments in his field-work. However, in places accumulations of 

 pelagic foraminifera, of radiolarian earths, and of certain particular kinds 

 of manganese nodules above present sealevel indicate that some ancient 

 deep-sea deposits have been elevated from several thousand feet below the 

 surface of the ocean and now form parts of dry-land areas ; but the areas 

 occupied by such deposits are relatively small in comparison with the 

 enormous extent of sediments of shallow-water origin. 



1 This is the sixth of a series of papers composing a "Symposium on the Interpretation 

 of Sedimentary Roclis." 



Manuscript received by the Seci-etary of the Society April 24, 1917. 



AuTiiou's NOTE.^ — The short paper herewith presented is to some extent an abstract 

 of a larger paper by myself in collaboration with .7. A. Cushman, M. I. Goldman, M. A. 

 Howe, and others, entitled "Some shoal-water bottom samples from Murray Island, Aus- 

 tralia, and comparisons of them with samples from Florida and the Bahamas," Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington Tub. 213, 1017. pi). 235-297. The accompanying tables are 

 talten from the larger paper, but the illustrations on plates 47 and 48 are published for 

 the first time. It is published by permission of the President of the Carnegie Institution 

 of Washington and of the Director of the U. S. Geological Survey, 



(933) 



