In view of the fine section east of Waucoba Springs on the northeastern side of Saline Valley, and the great development of Lower Cambrian strata to the north and east in Nevada, the term Waucoban is selected to replace Georgian as a group name for the formations included in the Lower Cambrian.
ST. CROIXAN OR UPPER CAMBRIAN[1]
When I proposed the name "Saratogian" in 1903[2] for the Upper Cambrian group of formations, an examination of several lists of geological formation names failed to show that the name Saratoga had been used by Dr. J. C. Branner[3] for a Cretaceous chalk marl in Arkansas, in his description of "The Cement Materials of Southwest Arkansas."[4] A description of the formation is given, with sections illustrating its stratigraphic position. In 1902[5] Mr. J. A. Taff used the term Saratoga formation in the same sense as Branner and gave illustrations of sections and contained fossils.
In view of the prior use of the name Saratoga by Branner and Taff, I doubt the advisability of continuing the use of Saratogan as a group name for the Upper Cambrian formations. There is also the fact that the two formations of Saratoga County, New York, that are used as the basis for the name, are not typically of Upper Cambrian age. A present tendency is to include them as passage beds between the Cambrian and the superjacent system of strata, or as belonging to the higher systems.[6] With the evidence now known to me from New York and the Appalachian region to the southwest I am inclined tentatively to refer the fauna as found in New York State to the upper limit of the Cambrian. The "Saratogan" would thus be correlated with one of the upper horizons of the "St. Croix sandstone" and included in the Upper Cambrian.[7]
My present view is that the use of the name Saratoga should be restricted to the Cretaceous formation, another name adopted for the
- ↑ Ulrich, Bull. Geol. Soc. America, Vol. 22, No. 3, 1911, pl. 27, and pp. 613 and 614.
- ↑ Journ. Geol., Chicago, Vol. 11, 1903, pp. 318-319.
- ↑ Dr. John M. Clarke recently (May 27, 1912) called my attention to this use of the name Saratoga by Branner, and wrote that he was then discussing the history of the name in a paper in press.
- ↑ Trans. American Inst. Mining Engineers, Vol. 27, 1898, pp. 52-55.
- ↑ Twenty-second Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Survey, 1902, pp. 714-720.
- ↑ See Ulrich, Bull. Geol. Soc. America, Vol. 22, No. 3, 1911, pl. 27, and p. 612.
- ↑ See Smithsonian Misc. Coll., Vol. 57. No. 9, 1912, pp. 255, 256, for a fuller discussion of this question.
