THE TRIASSIC PERIOD 



211 



Climate 



The extensive areas of "Red Beds," often accompanied by 

 salt and gypsum, in the western interior and eastern North Amer- 

 ica, northern and western Europe, and northern Africa show wide- 

 spread aridity of climate in the northern hemisphere during the 



Fig. 125 

 Sketch map showing the relations of land and water in Europe in the early 

 Triassic. Full lines = marine waters; broken lines = areas of non-marine 

 deposition. (After De Lapparent, from Chamberlin and Salisbury's "Ge- 

 ology," courtesy of Henry Holt and Company.) 



period. There is no evidence of glaciation, and the fossils indicate 

 mildness of climate. Judging by the character and distribution of 

 the fossils, the water of the Arctic Sea was appreciably cooler than 

 that of lower latitudes, so that climatic zones must have been 

 denned to some extent at least. 



