The Coal Measures Amphibia of North AmericaMoodie, Roy Lee
Science
The Coal Measures Amphibia of North America
Moodie, Roy Lee
Amphibians, Fossil -- North America; Paleontology -- Carboniferous; Paleontology -- North America
They are the first evidence of the occurrence of amphibian remains in
these deposits. The Cannelton specimens are found in a thin stratum of
slate which forms part of the Middle Cannelton Coal. The Cannelton slate,
in which the fossils occur, forms the roof of the Middle Kittanning Coal,
which is only 20 to 30 feet above the Lower Kittanning bed (I. C. White),
so it becomes evident that the deposition of the Cannelton slates was at
only a slightly later period than that of the shales in which the Mazon
Creek nodules occur, since the Mazon Creek shales form the roof of the
Morris, which "is probably somewhat lower than the Lower Kittanning of
Pennsylvania." From the Cannelton slates are known the remains of plants,
insects, crustacea, especially "Eurypterids found in shale immediately
below the Darlington (Upper Kittanning) Cannel Coal, near Cannelton,
Darlington Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, Horizon, Allegheny River
Series" (Hall, 1884). In these shales occur also, fishes and the 3 species
of amphibians referred to above. The Amphibia known from this region are
small, the largest of them not exceeding 6 inches in length.
[Illustration: Fig. 4. Portion of "West Virginia-Ohio-Pennsylvania,
Wellsville Quadrangle" of the U.S. Geological Survey, to show topography
and situation of Linton coal mines. Some fossil amphibians doubtless came
from across the line in Columbiana County.]
(_n_) The Linton, Ohio, beds outcropped near Linton post-office, which
was formerly located at the mouth of Yellow Creek, a few hundred yards
from the present station, Yellow Creek, Salem Township, Jefferson County,
in the valley of Yellow Creek, near the Ohio River, and thus near the
Pennsylvania state line.
In regard to the exact location of the town of Linton, which has long
since been abandoned, I quote from a letter from Dr. Louis Hussakof, who
visited the locality:
"The locality appears to have been known as Yellow Creek for many
years past. That is the name used in the Geological Map of Ohio
published by Orton in 1888 and which was based on the earlier maps
of Newberry (1869 and 1879). When I visited the place in 1905, and
asked for Linton (which I had not been able to locate on any map then
available to me), hardly anyone knew of such a locality. Only one old
man in Steubenville, Ohio, recalled that Yellow Creek was identical
with Linton.
"Yellow Creek is not a village, but only a R. R. station (on the
Pennsylvania R. R.), and marks a spot where once was an active
and prosperous mine. Probably at a former day there was a small
post-office somewhere in the neighborhood known as Linton. I did not
take any photographs, as I was not certain of the spot, or the mine,
from which the fossils had come. There are some cement mines within a
few minutes' walk of the station, but no coal appears to be mined at
present at Yellow Creek. 'Smith's Pit,' the coal mine best remembered
by the younger men, is not worked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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