S Windhausen — The Cretaceous- Tertiary 



goiiian Andine zone) the marine faunistic development 

 closed in the Barremian with the Crioceras of the Lago 

 Chacabuco and Rio Caracoles, giving way to a negative 

 phase which is represented in Patagonia by the Varie- 

 gated Sandstones of the Upper Cretaceous ("Areniscas 

 Abigarradas") ; while in the northern hemisphere the 

 invasion of the Gault-Sea and, in a larger degree, the 

 Cenomanian transgression indicated a positive phase. 21 

 During this epoch was prepared the home of the Pata- 

 gonian terrestrial faunas, while this continent was 1 yet 

 a part of the Brazilo-Ethiopian (Gondwana) Continent. 

 A little later, in North America, the brackish Laramie- 

 Sea began to take on the character of an inland sea of 

 the Laurentian Continent, and the latter became not only 

 one of the four great "asylums" in the sense of E. 

 Suess, 22 but also the oldest known home of placental 

 mammals. 



Passing over the periphery of the Cenomanian trans- 

 gression, the Senonian Sea with rare uniformity invaded 

 parts of the northern as well as of the southern hemi- 

 sphere. The world there experienced a positive move- 

 ment of universal character. From Greenland (Disko 

 Island) in the north, the Aral Sea in the east, and from 

 the Pacific (California) and Atlantic borders (Maryland, 

 New Jersey) of Laurentia, crossing the Mediterranean 

 region (Mexico, Antilles) and Brazil (Pirabas, Sergipe), 

 this positive movement of the Senonian extended to the 

 Chile-Patagonian region (Quiriquina, Lago Argentino, 

 Fireland) and even far to the extreme Antarctic south. 

 From the latter region the meritorious Swedish Antarc- 

 tic Expedition (1901-1903) has brought an abundance of 

 marine faunas, in no way inferior to the South Andine 

 fauna of the Tithonic and Lower Cretaceous. Thus, for 

 the second time in the course of earth history, Antarctica 

 became a center of independent, rich and singular marine 

 life ; but of course under climatic conditions quite differ- 

 ent from the present ones. There are well-founded rea- 

 sons for the belief that the sediments at the bottom of the 

 present Antarctic Sea, or parts of the Antarctic Continent 

 cover numerous intermediate stages of a very interesting 

 marine life development, which will likely be cleared up 



21 This transgression reaches in the south the Columbian and Peruvian 



f'09,sts 



22 Antlitz der Erde, III 2, pp. 760 etc. 



