LOWER TRIAS : SPITI. 
15 
A. Himalayan Facies. 
I. The Lower Trtas. 
a. Spiti. 
The most complete section of the marine lower Trias is found in 
Spiti, although in thickness it is inferior to that of Painkhanda and 
Byans. 
Lower Triassic fossils were known from the Himalayas as far back 
as 1865, when C. W. Guembel ' recognised in the collections of the 
brothers von Schlagiatweit several species of bivalves, which he identi- 
fied with Anodontophora fassaensis Wissm., Lima costata Muenst., 
Nucula Goldfussi Alb. from the Werfen beds of the Eastern Alps. The 
locaUty from which those fossils are quoted is Balamsali near Dankhar. 
The identity of this locahty with a place near Lilang in Spiti is very 
doubtful, as will be shown below. 
Stoliczka failed to recognise the existence of lower Triassic rocks in 
Spiti. The credit of their discovery in situ is due to C. L. Griesbach. 
He found the lowest beds, following immediately above the Permian 
Productus, or Ruling, shales to contain the fauna of the Otoceras beds, 
discovered by him in 1879 in the Painkhanda sections near the Niti 
pass. 
He also recognised that a second higher division was present in the 
Lower Triassic section of Muth, although he did not separate the two 
horizons distinctly. 
The Spiti sections were studied in great detail by H. Hayden and 
A. V. Krafft in 1899. On their researches and on the examination by 
Diener of their rich collections the following statements are based. 
The best exposures of lower Triassic rocks have been observed in a 
section near Lilang. The sequence^ is as follows, in descending order : — 
1 C. W. Ciuembel : Ueber da.s Vorkommen von unteren I riasschichten inHoch- 
asien, nach den von den Gebruedern Sclilagintweit gesammelten Fossilstuecken 
beurteilt. Sitzgsber. hgl. hayr. Akad., Muenclien, 1865, Pt. 2, p. 348. 
~ Described in General Report Geol. Surv. of /ftrfia for 1899-1900, p. 200, and 
in H. Hayden, Geology of Spiti, I. c, pp. 63-67. 
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