58 



THE PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS RED BEDS OF 



gether possible that they originated in migrations from the east around the 

 northern side of Ozarkia, and that they may have reached the regions in 

 Kansas earher than they did the more southern regions, for we know that 

 there was a gradual and progressive elimination of the waters on the surface 

 of the continent from the east toward the west during the Pennsylvanian 

 and the Permo-Carboniferous. 



GUADALUPE 

 MOUNTAINS 



RED BEDS 



STAKED 

 PLAl NS 



PANHAMOLE- 

 KANSA5 



DELAWARE 

 MOUNTAIN 



EXTENSION OF THE RED BEDS TO THE WEST BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VERTEBRATE 



FOSSILS IN THE TEXAS PROVINCE. 



Cummins, in his maps of the Permian of Texas, has drawn the limits 

 reaching far to the south of the bone-bearing beds, as noted above (p. 6), 

 and west to the Staked Plains. Beede ^ has maintained that the Red Beds 

 on the east side of the Pecos Valley are equivalent 

 to, or are a continuation of, the upper beds of Permo- 

 Carboniferous age of Texas and Oklahoma, and this 

 is in confirmation of Cummins 's earlier statements. 



He shows that Guadalupian limestones shade 

 north and east into red beds which are the same as 

 those to the east, and argues that the conditions in- 

 dicated by these beds isolated the invertebrate fauna 

 of the Pecos Valley region from that shown in the 

 Whitehorse formation in Oklahoma and the eastern 

 part of the Panhandle of Texas. 



' ' If the conclusions reached above are correct ^ it 

 leads at once to the correlation of the Kansas and Guad- 

 alupian sections. If we use the Whitehorse sandstone, 

 probably the equivalent of the beds in contact with the 

 Guadalupian limestone near Carlsbad, as a common 

 basis of correlation of the two sections, we attain the 

 result shown in the accompanying diagram [fig. lo]. 

 Disregarding their actual faunal relationships and com- 

 paring them as to their thickness, the strata of the two 

 sections compare as follows, the figures of the Guada- 

 lupian rocks being approximations : 



"In southern New Mexico we have some 4,500 feet 

 of the Guadalupian series, composed of 2,100 feet of 

 Capitan and overlying limestones, and 2,400 feet of the Delaware Mountain for- 

 mation, composed of limestones and sandstones overlying 5,000 feet of Hueco lime- 

 stones. Beginning at the same horizon in Kansas, we have the remainder of the 

 Red Beds, the lighter Permian and the Pennsylvanian, aggregating about 4,500 feet 

 of strata, composed of limestone shales and sandstone. So far as mere thickness is 

 concerned, it leaves the base of the Delaware Mountain formation about on the level 

 with the Cherokee shales (as exhibited in Kansas). The horizon of the base of the 

 Delaware Mountain formation in the Kansas section, interpreted upon its fauna, 

 or actual time equivalency, may be a very different matter. The base of the 

 Capitan falls near the bottom of the Elmdale formation stratigraphically, which is 



" Beede, Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. xxx, Aug. 1910, p. 131. 

 '' Beede, Ibid. 



Fig. 10. — Diagram showing rela- 

 tion of beds in Guadaloupe 

 Mountains to those in Texas 

 and Kansas. (After Beede.) 



