PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. POSTPONED PAPERS.
1. On the Carboniferous Flora of Bear Island (lat. 74° 30' N.). By Prof. Oswald Heer, F.M.G.S.
[Communicated by Sir Charles Lyell.]
(Read November 9, 1870 * .)
It has long been known that strata of Coal and Mountain Limestone are found in Bear Island ; but the true geological conditions of this island were first ascertained by Professor Nordenskiold, who visited it with the Swedish expedition of 1868. He and Professor Malmgren collected a large number of fossil plants out of the coal and the associated rocks. These plants, according to Nordenskiold, point to the following relations of the strata : —
Siliceous schists.
Productus-limestone with large, thick-shelled species of Productus.
Spirifer-limestone with gypsum. Many Spiriferi, some of them of colossal size.
Cyathophyllum-bearing limestone and dolomite.
Sandstone with intercalated coal and clay-shale. Contains the plants.
Russian-island limestone. Greyish yellow dolomite with beds of calcareous shales.
Red Devonian (?) shales.
The plants, therefore, were found under the Mountain Limestone. The russian-island limestone contains no determinable fossils ; and its geological position is therefore doubtful, as is also that of the red shales, which last Nordenskiold is inclined to place in the Devonian. The plants lie partly in the coal itself, partly in the sandstone, and partly in the dark-coloured shale, which in some places is quite filled with plant-remains. They are all land-plants; no trace of marine plants or animals is to be found. The whole deposit containing the plants is therefore probably of freshwater origin ; and the coals,
- See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxvii. p. 1.
