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(Bead Before the Paleontological Society December 28,1916) CONTENTS Pa Gf Summary Downloaded from gsabulletin.gsapubs.org on February 10, 2016 BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA V o l . 29, pp. 245-280 J u n e 30, 1918 PROCEEDINGS OF THE PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY AGE OF THE AMERICAN MORRISON AND EAST AFRICAN TENDAGURTJ FORMATIONS1 BY CHARLES SCHÜCHERT (Bead before the Paleontological Society December 28,1916) CONTENTS Pa gf Summary............................................................................................ ............................. 246 The Morrison and Sundance formations................................................................ 248 Names applied to the Morrison........................................................................ 248 Characteristics and distribution....................................................................... 248 .Relation to adJacent formations...................................................................... 250 Description of typical Sundance and Morrison sections......................................251 General reference.................................................................................................. 251 Oil Creek, below Garden Park, Colorado........................................................ 252 Como Bluff, Wyoming.......................................................................................... 252 Freezeout Hills, Wyoming."............................................................................. 253 Northwestern side' of Freezeout Hills, Wyoming..........................................254 Eastern side of Freezeout Hills, Wyoming.................................................... 254 Correlation of Sundance and Morrison formations..............................................256 Opinions and conclusion as to age of the Sundance....................................256 Age of the Morrison............................................................................................ 259 General statement......................................................................................... 259 Evidence of the plants............................................................................... 260 Evidence of the invertebrates.................................................................. 260 Evidence of the dinosaurs......................................................................... 261 Correlations.................................................................................................... 261 Conclusions..................................................................................................... 263 The Tendaguru series.................................................................................................. 264 Discovery................................................................................................................. 264 General results...................................................................................................... 264 General stratigraphy.......................................................................................... 265 Section in detail........................................................................“ .......................268 Conclusions as to habits and habitats of African dinosaurs..................... 271 Correlation of the Tendaguru series............................................................275 Correlations by the Germans................................................................. 275 Correlations on basis of dinosaurs......................................................... 276 Correlations on basis of marine invertebrates..................................... 277 Conclusions by Buckman........................................................................... 278 Conclusions by Schuchert........................................................................279 1 Manuscript received by the Secretary of the Society September 28, 1917. (245) Downloaded from gsabulletin.gsapubs.org on February 10, 2016 246 C. SCHUCHERT----MORRISON AND TENDAGURU FORMATIONS S um m ary This study was begun with the idea that the conclusion would he the certain transferal of the Morrison to the Lower Cretaceous or Comanchian. The writer, from a preliminary study made two years ago of some of the results of the findings in Bast Africa, was led to this belief, but as the final study progressed it became plain that if the Morrison could be shown to lie of Comanchian time at all it would have to he referred to the earliest part of this period. To make certain of the facts, the writer took up correspondence with several of his friends, resulting in the conclusion that for the present the Morrison is best left in the Jurassic, where it has been placed by most American paleontologists. The marine Sundance beneath the Morrison has several forms of am­ monites, one of which is Cardioceras cordiforme, a species of great strati­ graphie significance. If it is a genuine Cardioceras, its age is early Upper Jurassic (Corallian = Argovian), and if a Quenstedtoceras, then latest Middle Jurassic (Oxfordian = Divesian). On the other hand, it appears to be definitely excluded from Amceboceras, and hence from the Kim- nieridgian series. Accordingly, the Sundance is either of latest Middle Jurassic or earliest Upper Jurassic. There is, therefore, in the Great Plains country a long time interval before* marine strata are again met with in the Purgatoire formation, one of the members of the Washita series of the Comanchian. In this interval was deposited the Morrison formation of fresh-water origin. U ntil a few years ago it was widely held that the Morrison lies with unbroken sequence on the Sundance, and since the latter is of either late Middle or earliest Upper Jurassic time, it followed, since they were in continuous deposition, that the former must also belong to this period. Now most stratigraphers are agreed that the two formations are not hound together by transition beds, and, further, that the Morrison is a trans- gressive series of fresh-water strata over the marine Sundance. In many places the two formations do not follow one another and the Morrison has a strikingly different geographic distribution from the Sundance. The latter extends, ever widening in area, to the north and northwest into the Pacific, while the Morrison distribution is greatest in the oppo­ site direction, widening to the south. Pardee has recently shown that there is no Morrison in the Garrison and Phillipsburg quadrangles of Montana, and that the Kootenai here rests directly on the Sundance. Therefore in correlating the Morrison we have no means of determining the length of time represented by the break or disconformity between it and the Sundance, and until recently the organic content of the former Downloaded from gsabulletin.gsapubs.org on February 10, 2016 SUMMARY 247 was not checked into the marine sequence. Even now all that we can safely state is that it appears more probable that the Morrison is of Upper Jurassic age than of early Lower Cretaceous time. What caused the withdrawal of the Sundance or Logan sea is not yet known, but it may have resulted from the elevation of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a diastropliic movement of great magnitude. In any event, after Sundance time the Pacific Ocean never again spread east of the western Cordilleras. Not only this, but the marginal overlaps of this ocean were smaller in area after Jurassic time than they had been before this period. For a time the writer sought to connect the deposition of the Morrison with the Sierra Nevada crustal movement and thought that it followed the culmination of this diastrophism. Lee, however, empha­ sizes the close paleophysiographic similarities of the environments of the Sundance, Morrison, and Purgatoire formations, indicating that the Sierra Nevada movement did not affect the area of these deposits lying far to the eastward. From the synopsis presented beyond of the very interesting work of German paleontologists, it is seen that in the Tendaguru of East Africa there are two marine zones replete with guide fossils, and that beneath each one there is a dinosaur horizon having sauropods very similar to those in the Morrison. The whole series is regarded as one of continuous deposition and is replete with interest, not only because of the varied fossils of the sea and land, but further in that we get here a better under­ standing than heretofore as to the habitats of the sauropod dinosaurs. The upper marine Trigonia schwarzi zone is clearly of Lower Cretaceous or Neocomian time, while the middle T. smeei zone is of late Jurassic or more definitely of early Upper Kimmeridgian time. Accordingly the German stratigraphers refer the upper dinosaur horizon to the Lower Cretaceous and correlate it with the Wealden of Neocomian age, while the middle dinosaur horizon is regarded as of the older Kimmeridgian. The dinosaurs, and more especially the sauropods, are held, as a result of the preliminary studies, to be very much alike in both horizons, though later on it may be seen that they are somewhat different in each level. In any event, they are very much like those of the Morrison and thus help to fix the time of the American formation. As the ammonites of the Trigonia smeei zone are of the older Kim­ meridgian and as in the standard sections of western Europe there is still considerable Jurassic time left, it would appear more natural to regard the upper dinosaur zone as filling this time, because of the con­ tinuous deposition of the Tendaguru series. This is not the
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