THE CRETACEOUS PERIOD. 171 



It was late in the Upper Cretaceous that the extensive lava- flows 

 of the Deccan occurred. These lava-flows, 4000 to 6000 feet in thick- 

 ness, cover an area of something like 200,000 square miles, and are 

 perhaps the most stupendous outflows of lava recorded in the earth's 

 history. The lavas He on the eroded surface of the Cenomanian 

 and are interbedded, locally, with sediments of the " uppermost 

 Cretaceous. 7 ' l The fossils of these interbedded sediments show that 

 the lavas were subaerial. 



Africa. — In northern Africa the Lower Cretaceous beds were con- 

 fined to the northwestern mountains, but the Upper Cretaceous beds, 

 which overlie the Lower unconformably, 2 spread southward, and cover 

 most of the desert, indicating great submergence in the north African 

 region at the close of the Earlier Cretaceous period. South of the 

 Sahara, no Upper Cretaceous beds are known except in a few small 

 areas about the coast. Here they rest on crystalline schists, with no 

 Lower Cretaceous beds beneath, or, so far as known, near. 



South America. — In South America, the sea invaded eastern Brazil, 

 where marine LTpper Cretaceous beds cover and overlap the non- 

 marine Lower Cretaceous. In some parts of Brazil, however, the 

 Upper Cretaceous is represented by fresh-water beds only. Farther 

 west, marine Upper Cretaceous beds (Senonian) rest unconformably 

 on Lower Cretaceous formations, and form the summits of most of the 

 eastern Andes, frequently occurring up to altitudes of 14,000 feet, 

 and sometimes considerably higher. Upper Cretaceous beds also 

 occur in southern Patagonia. 3 There appears to have been great 

 volcanic activity in the Andean system (Chili and Peru) during the 

 Late Cretaceous. 



Australia. — The phenomena of Australia are in harmony with those 

 of the other continents. The Upper Cretaceous beds are wide-spread- 

 and locally rest on formations older than the Lower Cretaceous. Fur- 

 thermore, the Upper Cretaceous (the Desert Sandstone) is in many places 

 unconformable on the upturned and denuded surface of the Lower 

 Cretaceous, showing that there were deformative movements, as well 

 as movements which changed the relations of sea and land, after the 



1 Medlicott and Blanford, Geology of India; 2d ed. by R. D. Oldham; cited 

 by Geikie, Text-book of Geology, 4th ed., Vol. II, p. 1209. Also Stoliczka, Paleo. 

 Indica., Ser. I, III, V, VI, and VIII (1861-1873). 



2 Kayser, Geologische Formationskunde, p. 443. 

 'Wilchens, Centralblatt fur Mineralogie, etc., 1904, p. 597. 



