STRATIGRAPHY OF SHAN-TUNG. 53 
IN THE PO-SHAN DISTRICT. 
Out of a number of small coal-fields in Shan-tung, that at Po-shan 
seems to be commercially one of the most important. Like all the others 
which we had an opportunity to examine, it owes its survival largely to 
normal faulting, which has lowered the soft Carboniferous strata down 
below the general base-level of the region. As it has already been described 
in considerable detail by von Richthofen,* it will not be necessary to dis- 
cuss the geological conditions of the region at length. His observations 
were confirmed and supplemented by recognition of the Pre-Carboniferous 
unconformity, the significance of which was not perceived in his time. 
The Po-shan coal-measures are in the main like those at Yen-chuang, 
although the black shales appear in larger proportion, and the development 
of the volcanic rocks is not so conspicuous. 
PERMO-MESOZOIC. 
SIN-T’AI SERIES. 
Under the name of Sin-t’ai series are grouped certain sedimentary 
rocks, which overlie the coal-bearing series, but which may or may not 
prove to be of the same general age.t Inasmuch as the contact of the 
two formations was not observed, the stratigraphic relation between them 
is not known.{ Certain facts point toa relatively close connection between 
them. Both are intercalated with igneous flows which appear to be con- 
temporaneous with the sedimentation. So far as observed, the two series 
coincide in dip as if conformably bedded and deformed at the same epoch. 
Another significant fact is found in the red color of the rocks, which sug- 
gests the Permian red beds of Europe and the United States, and indicates 
somewhat unusual climatic conditions similar to those which prevailed 
widely in the Permian. 
In contrast to the lower, supposedly Permian, part of the sequence, the 
upper Sin-t’ai strata are characterized by coarse conglomerates. The succes- 
sion above the Carboniferous is not unlike that observed by von Richthofen§ 
and Léczy|| at Kuang-ytian-hién in Ssi-ch’uan, where both Permian and 
Jurassic are represented, the latter probably lying unconformably upon 

* China, vol. 11, pp. 201-208. 
+ The Jurassic coal-measures reported by Potonié from central Shan-tung (Futterer, Durch Asien, 1, 
1903) were not observed in the area covered by our survey. 
t Von Richthofen found them lying ahove the coal-measures in the Sin-t’ai valley, but was unable 
to identify them with any terrane, either in Shan-tung or elsewhere. Lorenz reviews von Richthofen’s 
description of the Sin-t’ai beds and assigns them to the time of dislocation which he associates with the 
Tertiary. The red sandstone, which we regard as the lower member of the Sin-t’ai beds, he classes with 
the Permian. 
§ China, vol. 11, p. 602. 
|| Ergebnisse der Reise des Grafen Széchenyi, vol. 11, p. 211. 
