The Principles of Stratigraphical GeologyMarr, J. E. (John Edward)
Science
The Principles of Stratigraphical Geology
Marr, J. E. (John Edward)
Geology, Stratigraphic
The principal European developments of Cambrian rock are found in
Scandinavia, Russia, Bohemia and Spain, and of these the Scandinavian
one is by far the most fully developed, as there is a complete
sequence in the rocks of that peninsula. They occur both in Norway and
Sweden, but the Swedish exposures are the most interesting in most
respects, especially those of Westrogothia and Scania. The rocks are
of no great thickness, and consist essentially of black carbonaceous
shales, with inconstant bands of impure black limestone composed
almost entirely of the remains of trilobites or more rarely of
brachiopods. These Alum Shales, as they are termed, rest unconformably
upon Precambrian rocks, and have arenaceous and conglomeratic deposits
at the base. In Russia the rocks are still further attenuated, and
have not yielded the relics of so many faunas as have been found in
the Scandinavian Cambrian rocks.
The Bohemian development is incomplete, owing apparently to an
unconformity at the base of the overlying Ordovician rocks, while the
Spanish deposits which seem fairly thick and composed largely of
mechanical sediments have not been worked out in very great detail.
The American development of Cambrian rocks resembles the European one
in many striking particulars, and as in the case of Europe, there are
lateral variations in the lithological characters of the rocks, though
in the opposite direction, the shallow-water deposits occurring on the
east coast, and the deep-water deposits further west.
The general distribution of the different types of Cambrian strata in
Europe and North America has been accounted for on the supposition
that in Cambrian times a tract of land lay over much of the present
site of the North Atlantic Ocean, and that the detritus of that land
formed the shallow-water accumulations of Wales and the east of
Canada, whilst further away from it were deposited the open-sea
accumulations of Scandinavia and Russia on one side and of the more
westerly regions of North America on the other, as indicated in Fig.
16.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.
P. Precambrian Rocks.
A. Land.
X, X´. Sea level.
BB´. Shore deposits.
CC´. Deep-water deposits.
DD´. Abyssal deposits.
]
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