Abstract
LONDON. Geological Society, June 23.—Dr. A. Smith Wood ward, F.R.S., president, in the chair.—Prof. Xavier Stainier: A new eurypterid from the Belgian Coal Measures. The discovery is recorded of a specimen of a new Eurypterus in the cores of a trial-boring for coal in Belgium. The fossil, which is in a satisfactory state of preservation, is described. A short description of the eleven Carboniferous species known up to the present is appended. The nearest form to the Belgian fossil seems to be a Pennsylvanian Eurypterus, which, nevertheless, is not identical with the former. The geological range and the evolution in time of the twelve Carboniferous eurypterids is discussed.—R. B. Newton: A fossiliferous limestone from the North Sea. The material was trawled from the floor of the North Sea. It presents no appearance of glaciation, so that its occurrence in situ seems to be highly probable. There is no record of a similar limestone from either England or Scotland. It is of highly siliceous character and full of marine shells, of which the Pelecypoda are the more prominent; there are fragments of wood in contact with the lime stone which appear to show coniferous characters. Some twenty-three species of mollusca have been determined, all of which exhibit a southern facies, including a new dosiniform shell belonging to the genus Sinodia, the relationships of which are confined to the Indian Ocean regions of Southern Asia. Eighteen of the species trace their origin from the Vindobonian stage of the Miocene, ten may be regarded as extinct, whereas twelve still exist in recent seas. The majority of the species are fairly evenly distributed in both the Coralline and the Red Crag formations of East Anglia, although it is thought that the rock must be of older age than Red Crag. Additional support is given to this view, because such shells as Arcoperna sericea, Tellina benedeni, and Panopaea menardi are not known of later age in this country than the Coralline Crag. The occurrence also of extinct gastropods, which are characteristic of the Upper Miocene or Messinian deposits of northern Germany, constitutes further evidence in favour of a greater antiquity for this limestone than that of the Red Crag; it is, therefore, considered to be of Coralline Crag age. -W. R. Jones: The origin of the tin-ore deposits of the Kinta district, Perak (Federated Malay States). Certain tin-ore-bearing clays occurring in the Kinta district have been described as being of glacial origin, and the tin-ore which they contain as having been derived from “some mass of tin-bearing granite and rocks altered by it, distinct from and older than the Mesozoic Granite” (that is, than the granite now in situ in the Kinta district). These clays are stated to have furnished a more valuable horizon on climatic evidence than can be afforded by limited collections of fossils in rocks far removed from Europe. The importance is urged of the origin of these clays in a country where, on one hand, they yield an important part of the world's output of tin-ore, and where, on the other, they have been used as the horizon on which to base the geological age of rocks which cover about a third of the surface of the Malay Peninsula. If of glacial origin, a vast tin-field remains to be discovered. The object is to show that all the tin-ore found in these clays is derived from rocks now in situ in the Kinta district; that it is not necessary to bring in glacial action to explain and to show that a simple interpretation may be given to the geology of the Kinta district. The sources of the tin-ore are:— (1) the stanniferous granite of the Main Range; (2) other granite outcrops known to carry cassiterite; (3) the granitic intrusions in the phyllites and schists; and (4) the granitic intrusions traversing the lime stone. The angularity of the boulders and of the tin ore in some of these clays is due (i) to weathering in situ of the phyllites and schists, which then sink. on the dissolving limestone underneath; (2) to soil- creep effecting the same result; (3) to the breaking up of the weathered cassiterite-bearing boulders in the alluvium. More than 90 per cent, of the ore worked in the Kinta district is obtained from mines situated at less than a mile from granite or from granitic intrusions.
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Societies and Academies . Nature 96, 109–110 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/096109b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/096109b0