782 INDEX TO THE STRATIGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICA. 



being of this age. The top of the formation is marked by an extensive coal deposit, seen first 

 in the Wintering HiUs as a thin bed of carbonaceous shale, but on being traced northward is 

 found to thicken very greatly, till on the North Saskatchewan, near Goose Encampment, it 

 has a thicloiess of 25 feet. The bottom of the series lies conformably on the Pierre shales, 

 without any sharp line of demarcation between the two. In fact, the shales gradually lose 

 their massive character and change almost insensibly into thin beds, which are of decidedly 

 brackish-water origin. In the Pierre remains of land plants and animals are very rare, while 

 here traces of land plants become fairly plentiful, and on Red Deer River dinosaurian bones 

 are met with in great abundance, showing, with the presence of estuarine shells, the partly 

 land-locked character of the area within which the beds were deposited. 



Under the Paskapoo series we group all the Laramie rocks lying above those of the 

 Edmonton series; thus it will include Dr. Dawson's Porcupine HiUs and Willow Creek series 

 and aU but the lowest 700 to 900 feet of his St. Mary River series. On the plains no place 

 was seen where its total thickness could be measured, but at the outer edge of the foothills, 

 on Little Red Deer River, a thickness of 5,700 feet at least was determined, the bottom of the 

 formation not being seen, and it is probable that a considerable thickness had been denuded 

 from the top. 



The beds consist of more or less hard light-gray or yellowish, brownish-weathering sand- 

 stone, usually thick bedded but often showing false bedding; also of light bluish-gray and 

 olive sandy shales, often interstratified with bands of hard lameUar ferruginous sandstone, and 

 sometimes with bands of concretionary blue limestone, which bums into an excellent lime. 

 The sandstones consist of very irregular though slightly roimded grains of quartz, feldspar, 

 and mica, cemented together in a calcareo-argiUaceous matrix. 



The whole series, as shown by its invertebrate fauna, is of fresh-water origin. 



N 4. CHICHAGOF COVE, ALASKA PENHTSUXA. 



Palache*^^ distinguished marine sediments containing abundant fossil remains 

 which show them to be of lower Eocene age. He described the terrane as the Stepo- 

 vak series and divided it into lower and upper beds. The lower beds comprise coarse 

 breccias or agglomerates and fine tuffs. composed wholly of igneous material. The 

 coarse agglomerates contain angular fragments, a foot or less in diameter, of white 

 or greenish porphyry, and rarely granite. They are cemented by comminuted mate- 

 rial which consists essentially of interwoven hornblende needles. Although macro- 

 scopicaUy the rocks are varied in appearance, microscopically they are very similar. 

 They are pyroclastic, but some exhibit a little evidence of water sorting and others 

 may be called flow breccias. They contain pecten-like fossil shells which are too 

 imperfect for determination. The upper beds consist of soft shales, sandstones, 

 and grits, with some thin beds of limestone and here and there a chert band. 



After describing local sections and the folded structure of the Stepovak series, 

 Palache continues: 



Concerning the fossils collected from this formation Dr. Dall says: "The fossils from the 

 Stepovak beds are Eocene, probably of about Claiborne age (middle Eocene), and are the only 

 typical Eocene yet discovered in Alaska." 



(See quotations in regard to the age of the Kenai under 0-P 5, Kenai Penin- 

 sula, pp. 785-787, and 4-5, Alaska Peninsula, pp. 783-784.) , 



