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The Carbonaceous Shale or Richmond Formation of Jamaica.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

C. T. Trechmann
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The Carbonaceous or Black Shale or Richmond Formation of Jamaica is a deposit of considerable importance in connexion with the geological history of the Greater Antilles. R. T. Hill1 correlates provisionally the Richmond Formation, as he calls these beds, with the Scotland Series of Barbados, the oldest formation in that island, and also with certain of the Tertiary beds of Trinidad. In the present communication I shall endeavour to present some observations on the Carbonaceous Shale Series of Jamaica, together with a description of the fossils I collected in it. This series of deposits consists of a sequence of ferruginous sandstones both coarse and fine-grained, some of them very hard, others when weathered extremely friable; of impure carbonaceous limestones of a very unfossiliferous nature; of grey nodular friable shales often with carbonaceous plant-like remains in them, but scarcely any other fossils; and of coarse conglomerates which seem to occur chiefly in the lower part of the formation.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , January 1924 , pp. 2 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1924

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References

page 2 note 1 Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, , vol. xxxiv, 1899. As regards Barbados, having examined both the Richmond Series in Jamaica and the Scotland beds in Barbados and their fossils, I am able to assert that there is no close resemblance between them. The Scotland beds consist of a thick series of sandstones, shales, and round-grained grits, frequently petroliferous. With the exception of some masses of a very hard sandstone whose exact original position is doubtful, all the fossils in the Scotland beds occur in a single thin conglomeratic band and seem to be referable to a considerably higher stage of the Eocene than either the Richmond beds or the Yellow Limestone of Jamaica. The molluscan fauna in the Scotland beds is quite different from any that I met with in Jamaica. Neither is there any trace in the Scotland beds of gneissose or metamorphosed rock fragments nor of any derived Cretaceous fossils, such as occur in the Richmond beds.Google Scholar

Mr. A. Menzies, the Geologist of the British Union Oil Company, has recently made a detailed survey of the Scotland district and other areas of Barbados and has succeeded in elucidating some very interesting structural features. I am much indebted to him for pointing out to me the fossils at several localities in the area occupied by the Scotland series.

page 4 note 1 “Reports on the Geology of Jamaica”: Mem. Geol. Surv., London, 1869, p. 25.Google Scholar

page 5 note 1 “The Cretaceous and Tertiary question in Jamaica”: Geol. Mag., Vol. LIX, 1922, p. 426.Google Scholar

page 6 note 1 The Trappean Shales at Providence contain a fairly rich marine fauna apparently of Campanian age, which seems to be the oldest represented in Jamaica.

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page 13 note 1 Cossmann, , Essais de Palæoconchologie Comparee, viii, 1909, p. 164, pl. iii, figs. 14, 15.Google Scholar

page 13 note 2 Geol. of Tert. and Quat. in N.W. Peru, 1922, p. 82, pl. ix, figs. 5, 6.Google Scholar

page 14 note 1 Bosworth, T. O. D.Sc., Woods, H. F.R.S., and others, Geol. of Tertiary and Quaternary periods in N.W. Peru, 1922, p. 89, pl. xi, figs. 6–8.Google Scholar

page 15 note 1 Newton, R. B., “Eocene Mollusca of Nigeria”: Geol. Surv. Nigeria, Bull. 3, 1922, p. 46, pl. iv, figs. 10, 11.Google Scholar

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page 16 note 2 “Palæontology of the Coalinga District”: U.S. Geol. Surv., Bull. 396, 1909, pl. iv, figs. 2, 3.Google Scholar

page 18 note 1 Oppenheim, , Alttertiarer Faunen in Aegypten Palæontogr., xxx, 1906, p. 190, pl. xix, figs. 1, 1a.Google Scholar

page 18 note 2 Geol. Surv. of Nigeria, Bull. 3, 1922, p. 94, pl. 10.Google Scholar