440 University of California Publications in Geology [Vol. 8 



section, a correlation might be made with Europe which would be 

 more accurate than anything that has as yet been made. 



Recently some important discoveries of land vertebrates were made 

 in the region of Oilfields, Fresno County, California, by a party sent 

 out by the University of California. It is believed that these dis- 

 coveries have a very significant bearing on the correlation of the 

 Neocene of the west coast with the European type section of the 

 Miocene and Pliocene. 



Land vertebrates were found in the section referred to above at 

 four different horizons. The most important collection was obtained 

 from the upper beds of the Temblor ("Lower Neocene," called 

 Vaqueros by Anderson and Arnold, Bulls. Geol. 306 and 308, U. S. 

 G. S.) . Here numerous well-preserved teeth of the genus Merychippus, 

 a Miocene three-toed horse, were found with a number of other forms, 

 such as mastodon, peccary, and camel. These land vertebrates were 

 below strata containing a typical Temblor invertebrate fauna, the beds 

 from which the fossils were obtained evidently being estuarine or delta 

 deposits. For the details concerning the fauna of the Merychippus 

 zone, the reader is referred to Professor J. C. Merriam's 46 paper 

 entitled ' ' Correlation between the Tertiary of the Great Basin and 

 that of the Marginal Marine Province in California." A full dis- 

 cussion is given in this paper concerning the importance of this fauna 

 as a means of determining the age of the Temblor beds. Professor 

 Merriam's final conclusion is that "the fauna of the Merychippus zone 

 is near the stage of the Middle Miocene as represented by the Mascall 

 and Virgin Valley faunas of the Great Basin region and by the Paw- 

 nee Creek stage of the Great Plains area. ' ' 



In the north Coalinga section, to which reference has just been 

 made, the Temblor beds are overlain unconformally by beds known as 

 the Santa Margarita formation, which corresponds in part to the 

 San Pablo Group of Middle California. The Santa Margarita of 

 the Coalinga District does not include as much as the San Pablo Group 

 of Middle California. The Lower San Pablo and the Scutella brewer- 

 iana zone are apparently missing in the north Coalinga section. The 

 writer has already expressed the opinion that the Scutella breweriana 

 beds are younger than the typical Monterey, to which the Temblor 

 belongs, and that the stratigraphic evidence shows that there is a con- 

 siderable time break between the two stratigraphic zones. There is 



« Science, n. s., vol. XV, no. 1035, pp. 643-645, August, 1914; also paper in 

 press, Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc. 



