SOME REMARKS ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE 
TRIASSIC OF SPITZBERGEN. 
Historical. 
In his work «Beitrage zur Geologie der Baren-Insel, Spitzbergens» etc. Nathorst 
(pp. 350— 36 o) gave a summary of the literature published up to 1910 on the Trias of 
Spitzbergen and at the same time communicated his own important observations. During 
1910 and after this year papers dealing with the Triassic formations of Spitzbergen 
were published by De Geer (1910), Wittenburg (1910, 1912), Stolley (1911), Bohm (1912), 
Wiman (1914a, 1914b, 1916a, 1916b, 1917, 1920), Diener (1916) and myself (1918b). 
Scarcely any detailed attempts to draw parallels between the Triassic of Spitzbergen 
and that known in other regions were made before 1886, when Mojsisovics published 
his large work «Arktische Triasfaunen», in which the ammonites especially are dealt 
with. Mojsisovics then came to the conclusion that the series of Spitzbergen Triassic 
strata that consisted of black shales was equivalent to the Muschelkalk. He also included 
in this series the horizon with Posidonomya, but felt a little uncertain whether this horizon 
could be older. He confused the evertebrate-bearing horizons situated in the sandstone 
series above the shaly series, partly because of the incorrect determination of Halobia 
cf. neumayeri as H. zitelli by Lindstrom 1 ) and partly because of the, incompleteness of 
Nathorst’s information as to the localities of the finds. He first takes these upper 
horizons to be of Karnic age (cf. Bohm, 1903, p. j 3 ) and later on (1886, p. 152) of Noric. 
With Bohm’s work, published in igo 3 , on the Triassic fauna of Beeren Eiland a 
fixed starting-point was also obtained for a more exact parallelization of certain of the 
strata in the Triassic of Spitzbergen. For it appeared that in the Myophoria strata of 
Beeren Eiland there occurred, inter alia, the forms known from the upper Triassic 
series of Spitzbergen, Lingula polaris Lundgren, Pecten Obergi Lundgren and Lima spits- 
bergensis Lundgren. The upper Triassic series of Spitzbergen ought thus, at least to 
some extent, to correspond to the Myophoria strata of Beeren Eiland and, like them 
to be of karnic age. Later on Wittenburg (1910) was able to show in material collected 
from East Spitzbergen that the number of common forms in the upper Trias of Spitz¬ 
bergen and Beeren Eiland is rather considerable. 
*) Cf. Bohm, 1903, p. 73. 
S ten si 6, Triassic Fishes from Spitzbergen. 
