REPORT ORY lHEyY DIRECTOR, 1922 123 
Tae GEOLOGICAL AGE OF THE BONAVENTURE 
FORMATION 
BY JOHN M. CLARKE 
The determination of this problem has an interesting general 
bearing on the age of Old Red Sandstone deposits, particularly 
those represented by the Catskill rocks of New York. Many 
years of work in the typical region of the Bonaventure series 
brought the conclusion that while this blanket of red sands and 
conglomerates in Gaspé was in large part of Carboniferous age, 
the deposition actually began at the close of the Middle Devonian 
and continued without interruption into the later period. This 
Fig. 1 
& 
3 Sandstone N y 
ES Conglomerate ae e 
fa engue® : (N.80°E.) Dip as ep 19° (S 50°E) 
BRC ra cae OS ~=, Whale Head 
> Pi. Jaune 
Cp 
a a Plateau Ls. 
es ey 
dp \ ferte 
Mal-Bay 
Surface relations of the rocks inthe Barachots_Point StPeter—long Cove orca. 
interpretation differed from that by Sir William Logan, the 
founder and describer, only in the ascription of the lower moiety 
of the series to Devonian time. In the Catskill series of New 
York the division of this Old Red sedimentation is of like quality 
though not the same as to apparent quantity ; here there is more 
Devonian in proportion to the Carboniferous; there the pro- 
portion is reversed. It is quite possible that in New York the 
Carboniferous cap formations of the Catskill are incomplete from 
erosion or unfinished magical, / I. lneval: felt that. these. conclusions 
with reference to the. Bonaventure were sufficiently secure. on 
the basis of the evidence I had set out in a number of publications 
on Gaspé geology but my confidence in them was somewhat 
disturbed: by suggestions from Mr R. L, Sherlock of the British 
