730 INDEX TO THE STRATIGEAPIIY OF NOKTH AMERICA. 



"The formation ranges in thickness from 500 to 800 feet. The outcrop appears as a belt 

 extending across the area in an east-west direction, about 15 miles in width, and including 

 portions of Sabine, Newton, San Augustine, Jasper, Angelina, Tyler, Trinity, Polk, Walker, 

 San Jacinto, Montgomery, Grimes, and Brazos counties." 



Deussen states that great confusion has existed regarding the age and correlation of this 

 unit and, after reviewing the literature relating to it, continues: 



"As here interpreted, the Catahoula sandstone is a lithologic and stratigraphic unit which 

 transgresses several biologic zones. Stated differently, it is conceived to be of different ages 

 and to have been laid down at different periods in the different regions of its occurrence. In 

 -southwest Texas it is of Claiborne age, and this kind of deposition seems to have begun in this 

 area as early as Claiborne time. In central Texas, in the region of the Brazos, it is largely of 

 Jackson age. In eastern Texas it is largely of Vicksburg age. According to Matson, the 

 vertical transgression continues across Louisiana into Mississippi where the formation is of 

 post-Vicksburg age. This kind of deposition, begun in southwest Texas in Claiborne time, 

 gradually shifted eastward, and prevailed in Mississippi as late as middle Oligocene time. 

 If this interpretation is corredt it precludes the possibihty of an unconformity between deposits 

 of Eocene and Oligocene age in the Coastal Plain; no evidence of such unconformity has been 

 found. It also explains the apparent absence of the Vicksburg limestone in eastern Texas. 

 Upper Eocene deposits are not absent in eastern Texas and there is no hiatus in the sedimentary 

 series there. The assumption by Hilgard, Hopkins, and Loughridge that the 'Grand Gulf 

 group ' of Hilgard was stratigraphically continuous across Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas is 

 thus demonstrated to have been correct, if this interpretation is valid, but they were in error 

 in regard to the age of the materials in Texas. On the other hand. Bumble's determination of 

 the age of his 'Fayette beds' (the Catahoula here recognized) is demonstrated to have been 

 correct for southwest Texas, but if the view here maintained has force he is in error in assuming 

 that the formation in east Texas is of the same age as in southwest Texas." 



Fleming day. — Veatch ^^^ says: "The Fleming clay, which was so named by Kennedy in 

 1892'^ from Fleming siding on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway near the line between 

 Tyler and Polk counties, Tex., consists of green or bluish-green calcareous clays, differing from 

 the underlying Catahoula beds in the presence of numerous small white calcareous nodules and 

 the absence of the characteristic Catahoula sandstone layers. Near its base it often contains 

 a bed of bright-red clay which forms a convenient line of parting. 



"Although these deposits represent less truly littoral sediments than the Catahoula beds, 

 extended search has failed to reveal any marine remains except near Burkville, Newton County, 

 Tex., where a brackish-water Oligocene fauna'' has been found in a local development of lime- 

 stone 3 to 4 inches thick. William Kennedy" reports a number of lower Claiborne (Eocene) 

 species from this locality, but the collection made by the writer in 1902, which was by far the 

 largest made at this point, showed none of the species listed by Kennedy. Dr. T. Wayland 

 Vaughan later visited the outcrop and states that the fragmentary material which he was able 

 to obtain was regarded by both himself and Dr. W. H. Dall as having a decidedly Oligocene 

 aspect." 



This formation in Louisiana outcrops in a belt of country extending from Alexandria, on 

 Red River, westward to Burr's Ferry, on Sabine River, south of the outcrop of the Catahoula 

 sandstone. Deussen says: 



"This formation consists of grayish sandy clays with small nodules of lime, 'thin beds of 

 sandstone, and bluish and greenish-gray sand with nodules of lime. The occurrence of the 

 nodules of lime is a characteristic feature. The formation is from 200 to 500 feet in thickness. 

 The outcrop appears as a belt of country varying in width from 2 to 7 miles, lying south of the 

 Catahoula outcrop and extending east and west across Newton, Jasper, Tyler, Polk, San 

 Jacinto, Walker, and Grimes counties. 



a Kennedy, William, Third Ann. Kept. Geol. Survey Texas, 1892, pp. 62-63. 



6 Veatch, A. C, Kept. Geol. Survey Louiaiana, 1902, p. 136; Maury, C. J., Bull. Am. Paleontology No. 15, vol. 3 

 1902, p. 80. 



'^Bull. U, S. Geol. Survey No. 212, 1903, p. 53. 



