LADINIC STAGE OF PAINKHANDA; JOHAR AND BYANS. 
75 
The entire thickness of the ladinic stage in Spiti undoubtedly 
exceeds that of the Muschelkalk considerably. If we include the lower 
half of the Daonella limestone (group 2 in the sequence as given above), 
in which Daonella Lommeli has been found it amounts to 240 feet. 
At any rate group No. 1, of 160 feet in thickness, is a typical represent- 
ative of the ladinic stage in the Himalayas. 
/. The Ladinic stage of Painkhanda, Johar and Byans. 
In his description of the classical section of the Shalshal cliff Diener ^ 
stated that the Ptychites beds of the Upper Muschelkalk were overlain by 
a series of well-bedded limestones of inconsiderable thickness, agreeing 
lithologically with the underlying Muschelkalk, and only distinguished 
from it by its abundance of crinoid stems {Traumatocrinus Dittm). 
The faunula of this Traumatocrinus limestone was declared by E. v. 
Mojsisovics to belong to the carnic stage (zone of Trachyceras Aonoides). 
From this Diener concluded that the ladinic stage and the zone of 
Trachyceras Aon (St. Cassian beds) were either missing from the Trias of 
the Himalayas or, if really present, were of such insignificant develop- 
ment and thickness, that they could not be separated from the Mus- 
chelkalk, much in the same way as they occur in the North-eastern 
Kalkalpen of Austria. 
A. v. KrafEt refused to admit the homotaxis of the Traumatocrinus 
limestone with the zone of Trachyceras Aonoides, but the recent exa- 
mination of the rich fauna collected by him in the Bambanag and 
Shalshal cliffs has proved E. v. Mojsisovics' determination of its strati- 
graphical position to be entirely correct. 
If there are, indeed, equivalents of the ladinic stage present in 
Painkhanda, they are very small in thickness and extremely poor in 
characteristic fossils. A. v. KrafEt, when revising the sections in 
Painkhanda in 1900, found in the Shalshal cliff, between the highest 
beds of the Upper Muschelkalk containing Ptychites rugifer and the 
1 It has been demonstrated by Bittner (Himalayan Foss., 1. c. Vol. Ill , Pt. 2, 
p. 34), that the true Daonella Lommeli is restricted to the ladinic stage of the Alpine 
Trias and does not ascend into higher stages (noric Hallstatt limestone) as has been 
suggested by Rothpletz. 
- C. Diener, Ergebnisse einer geologischea Expedition in den Central Himalaya, 
etc., 1. c, pp. 546, 547. 
( 276 ) 
