101 
mostly only one fauna has been preserved at each locality? The last 
hypothesis, of course, must include the possibility of breaks or hiatuses in 
the sections, due to withdrawals and advances of the seas. The problem 
cannot now be solved, but it may be noted that one of the earlier faunas, 
that on Sheep river, occurs in the lower part of the Fernie section 1 , that 
one of the faunas intermediate in age, the C. munda fauna at Blairmore, 
occurs in the middle and greater part of the formation there, but may 
extend both up and down, and it is possible that both a lower Middle 
and a lower Upper Jurassic fauna are present in the Fernie formation on 
Kananaskis river. 
While making comparisons with other regions it is interesting to note 
that some time ago a skeleton of a large ichthyosaurian marine reptile was 
found in the Fernie formation on Elk river, one mile north of Morrissey, 
B.C., by Thomas Prentice and presented to the National Museum by 
W. B, Wilson. The specimen consists of the skull, jaws, ribs, and the 
greater part of the vertebral column. 2 
The hiatus between the Fernie and the Palaeozoic terrains is a con- 
siderable one. Most of the Fernie formation in Blairmore region is of lower 
Upper Jurassic time, but there is the possibility that the lowest part may 
be earlier and even Middle Jurassic. The age of the quartzitic beds on 
which the Fernie locally rests is probably Pennsylvanian. These beds are 
probably of the Rocky Mountain quartzite formation or a local equivalent 
of it which in this area Warren dates Pennsylvanian, 3 although in the 
Banff area 4 * the uppermost part of the Rocky Mountain quartzite may be 
of Permian age. The hiatus, therefore, in the Blairmore area includes 
part of the Jurassic, all of Triassic, and probably all of Permian time. 
As fossil plants only were collected in the Kootenay formation, its 
correlation must rest on palseobotanical evidence alone. The plants col- 
lected were sent to Professor Berry with the request that the age of the 
Kootenay flora from the Blairmore localities be examined on its own 
merits, the writer having in mind the possibility that the Kootenay flora 
from Blairmore might be of a different age from some other Kootenay 
floras. Berry, after study, concluded that this, like other Kootenay floras, 
was of Barremian age. 6 In 1915 the writer, on the basis of the apparent 
conformity of the Kootenay and Fernie formations, noted also by other 
observers, dated the Kootenay Upper Jurassic, placed the important 
disconformity in the Cretaceous section of Blairmore between the Kootenay 
and Blairmore formations, claimed that the conglomerates of the Blairmore 
indicate the uplift of a landmass to the west, which might mark the Sierra 
Nevadan revolution and that the hiatus between Kootenay and Blairmore 
might represent all of Lower Comanchean (i.e., Lower Cretaceous) time. 6 
This is an extreme and not altogether accurate interpretation, to all of which 
the writer would not now subscribe. It is unfortunate that the “passage 
beds” contain no fossils that would indicate their age. In them is the 
first record of non-marine conditions, although the non-marine elements 
1 Marshall, J. R.: Personal communication. 
8 Sternberg, C. M.: Personal communication. 
* Warren, P. S.: Trans. Roy. Soc., Canada, 3rd ser., vol. 22, pt. 1, sec. IV, pp. Ill, 112, 115, 116 (1928). 
4 Warren, P. S.: Geol. Surv., Canada, Mem, 153, p. 37 (1927). 
* Berry, E, W.: "The Kootenay and Lower Blairmore Floras”, p, 2S this vol.; also Trans. Roy. Soc., Canada, 
3rd ser., vol. 20, sec. IV, p. 20 (1926). 
6 McLearn, F, H,: Geol. Surv., Canada, Sum. Rept. 1915, p. 112 (1916). 
