UPPER CEETACEOUS. 705 



the peninsula (Atanikerdluk), are probably due to inequality in the post-Tertiary epeirogenic 

 movements. 



The sediments appear to have been derived from the east, since the light-colored sand- 

 stones and conglomerates are most abundant on that side of the sedimentary belt (Kock, 

 Kse'sut), where marine fossils appear to be wanting. At one of the eastern localities (Ujarar- 

 torsuak) fresh-water shells occur with plants. To the west dark homogeneous shales with 

 abundant remains of marine animals predominate. 



Sedimentation appears to have been continuous in some portion of this region throughout 

 Cretaceous and early Tertiary times, since no marked unconformities or unmistakable evidence 

 of interruption of deposition have been seen. In certain sections, however, there appears to be, 

 either in a variable thickness of the series or a slight difference of attitude, evidence of move- 

 ments or erosion prior to the imposition of the Tertiary basalt cap, though these may be 

 only local or of minor extent. But in many well-exposed sections there is no local trace of 

 sedimentary discontinuity between the Mesozoic and Tertiary. 



The entire thickness of the clastic deposits is probably over 3,500 feet. They are divided 

 by Heer into four series, on the basis of their vegetable contents. Of the lowest of these, the 

 Kome series, developed on the north coast of the peninsula, a thickness of probably not over 

 700 feet is exposed above tide. The discovery of additional dicotyledons in the Kome series, 

 from which hitherto only Populus primseva was known and which was regarded as Urgonian in 

 age by Heer, casts a serious doubt on the reference of those beds to so low a stage in the 

 Lower Cretaceous. The flora as a whole is, however, to be compared with that of the Virginian 

 Potomac formation, with some, perhaps the upper portion, of which the Kome series is probably 

 synchronous. 



The Atane series, hitherto not positively known on the north shore of Nugsuak Peninsula, 

 is clearly present at Ujarartorsuak with characteristic Atane plants. Farther west, at Kook 

 Angnertunek and Niakomat, the dark homogeneous shale series probably represents both the 

 Atane and Patoot members of the Upper Cretaceous, since of the marine organisms found here 

 some are identical with those occurring at Ata and Patoot, the typical localities for the two 

 divisions of the Upper Cretaceous. The marine invertebrates from the Atane series, which 

 Heer correlated by means of fossil plants with the Cenomanian of Europe, strongly indicate 

 that the series is to be correlated with the Fort Pierre and Fox Hills or Montana formation of the 

 western United States. Paleobotanically the Atane series is so closely related to the Vineyard 

 series of Marthas Vineyard, the Amboy clays of the Raritan region of New Jersey, or the upper- 

 most Potomac of Alabama as to furnish strong reason for the belief that the middle of Heer's 

 groups is the Greenland contemporary of the Amboy clays. The Patoot series, which appears 

 lithologically and stratigraphically to be inseparable from the Atane series, contains at the same 

 time many plants common in the upper part of the Amboy clays, with others allied more closely 

 to the higher Cretaceous floras, such as that of the Laramie. The Patoot series may perhaps 

 be safely interpreted as constituting a paleontological as well as sedimentary transition from 

 the Atane series to the Tertiary. The thickness of the Atane and Patoot series (Senonian) is 

 not less than 1,300 feet and may considerably exceed this. 

 48011°— 12 45 



