LADINIC STAGE OF SPITI. 
7l 
Detailed researches will be necessary before anything more definite 
can be said about the Muschelkalk of Byans. 
e. The Ladinic stage of Spiti. 
One of the most important stratigraphical results of A. v. Krafft'a 
and Hayden's researches in Spiti was the discovery of a very rich devel- 
opment of the Ladinic stage. The presence of this stage, which Diener 
and Griesbach had failed to recognise in the sections of the Bambanag 
and Shalshal cliffs, had been predicted by Bittner,^ on the ground of his 
discovery of a specimen of Daonella Lommeli Wissm. among Griesbach's 
collections from Muth. 
From H. Hayden's and A. v. Krafft's descriptions it is evident that 
no stratigraphical break occurs in Spiti above the Upper Muschel- 
kalk, but that the passage into the ladinic stage is so gradual, that no 
boundary line can be fixed between the two. In the sections of Kaga, 
of Muth and in the Thanam valley, the topmost bed of the Muschel- 
kalk group, which stratigraphically cannot be separated from the beds 
containing Ptychites rugifer 0pp., has yielded a fauna of a decidedly 
ladinic aspect. 
Above this passage bed follows a series of thin-bedded black, shaly 
limestones and earthy shales, with some hard, black limestone beds 
(weathering brown), of 160 feet in thickness. This is the group of 
' Daonella shales,' the prototype of the ladinic stage in Spiti. 
The fauna of the passage beds in Spiti consists of the following 
species : — 
Spirigera hunica Bittn. 
Ceratites (?) Wetsoni 0pp. ^ 
Arpadites cf. Ussarensis Mojs. 
,, rimkinensis Mojs. 
Hungarites Pradoi d'Arch. 
,, sp. ind. aff. Mojisisovicsi Boeckh. 
Protrachyceras longohardicum Mojs. 
„ spitiense Dien. 
Cautleyi Dien. 
1 A. Bittner, Palceont. Indica, ser. XV, Himalayan Foss., Vol. Ill, Pt. 2, p. 38. 
2 The appurtenance of this species to the genus Ceratites is extremely doubtful. 
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