Feb., 1911.] Literature on Geology of South America. 
283 
Cretaceous. The Cretaceous deposits are wide-spread in 
South America and represent a notable encroachment of the sea 
upon the continent. “Marine Cretaceous fossils are found in 
nearly all parts of the Cordillera from South Patagonia to East 
Venezuela” and a rich marine fauna has also been discovered in 
the Cretaceous formations of east Brazil. 42 
“Certain of the characteristic Lower Cretaceous fossils of the 
North reappear in the South. The famous genus Aucella, widely 
distributed on the slopes of the North Pacific, has been recently 
mentioned by N. Ritin from Mexico; by White from Brazil; and I 
(Steinmann) know it also from the environs of Lima associated 
with Ammonites of the Neocomian of Europe.” 43 
The undoubted marine deposits of the central part of South 
America disappear to the north and the south and are replaced by 
sandy deposits without marine fossils. “Probably a great part 
of the red sandstone formations which occur in Brazil, Venezuela, 
Bolivia, and in the north of the Argentine Republic, take the 
same place relative to the marine sediments as do the Atlanto- 
saurus beds, the Trinity and Tuscaloosa formations in North 
America.” 44 
The Ammonite-bearing beds of the Lower Cretaceous in 
Patagonia, 45 Peru, Venezuela 46 and Columbia 47 , have been worked 
out in detail. Gerhardt refers these beds to the European hori- 
zons, Neocom (?), Barremien, Aptien, and Albien. The beds 
consist of dark blue limestone interbedded with quartzite, white 
and red sandstones. In Patagonia these beds have a rather 
limited distribution and are overlain unconformably (?) by the 
Dinosaur beds. 48 These latter consist of red sandstones, con- 
glomerates, with clays, marls and volcanic tuffs. 
On the Pacific coast of south Chili glauconitic sandstones are 
found which contain a rich fauna of the uppermost Cretaceous. 
This is especially shown on the Island of Quinquina. “Besides 
many Ammonites and Baculites, partly identical with those from 
south India, this fauna is characterized by the abundance of Gas- 
tropods of Tertiary type. The Cretaceous beds are covered 
conformably by a lignitic formation whose fauna does not contain 
the Cretaceous fossils; but startigraphically both formations are 
42. .Steinmann, Gustav, loc. cit., p. 858. 
43. Steinmann, Gustav, loc. cit., p. 858. 
44. Steinmann, Gustav, loc. cit., p. 858. 
45. Faru, Francois, Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, Geologie, und 
Palaeontologie, Vol. XXV (Beilage Band), 1908, pp. 601-647. 
46. Gerhardt, K. Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, Geologie, und 
Palaeontologie, Vol. XI (Beilage Band), 1897-8, pp. 65-117. 
47. Gerhardt, K., loc. cit., pp. 118-208. 
48. Roth, Santiago, Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, Geologie, und 
Palaeontologie, Vol. XXVI (Beilage Band), 1908, pp. 94r-118. 
