31

A section recorded by Williams and exposed in the valley of a short tribu-
tary of Tetsa River near mile 381-5 is, in descending order, as follows:
Sandstone, limy, alternating with black shale; Spirifer and Syringo-
thyris near top
Sandstone, fine, limy, argillaceous; with Productus
Sandstone, shaly, limy

Productus crawfordsvillensis Weller (?) and Spirifer floydensis Weller
were collected at the base of this section; Productus inflatus McChesney (?),
Productus burlingtonensis Hall, Productus jasperensis Warren, Productus
(other species), and Spirifer floydensis Weller from near the top; and
Spirifer floydensis Weller(?) and Syringothyris subcuspidata Hall (?) at
the top. One-half mile east, Williams records vertical beds of highly
crinoidal limestone, with bryozoa, Productus, Chonetes chesterensis Weller
(?), Dielasma sp., and Huomphalus. Along the Alaska Highway, west of
the short tributary of Tetsa River mentioned above, “fossiliferous lime-
stone and overlying limy sandstone contain a wealth of fossil brachiopods
and pelecypods and some trilobites”. A limestone block carries Brachy-
thyris suborbicularts (Hall) and other fossils. ‘The adjoining hillside is
composed of about 100 feet of dark grey, limy sandstone, which loses its
lime cement through weathering and appears as a brown, fine-grained
sandstone.

“There are probably about 200 feet of these beds exposed westward
along the hillside, where they rise in a small anticline and are overlain by
chert beds of the succeeding formation.

“Six hundred and fifty feet up the hillside above mile 382-5, Dielasma
sp. occurs in brown calcareous sandstone’’.

Williams recognizes “two distinct faunas in these ‘Mississippian’
strata, the lower one characterized by various productids and the upper
one by spiriferoids. Neither of these faunas has much in common with
faunas so far described from the Banff, Moose Mountain, Jasper, Peace
River, or Liard River sections. Warren has listed Productus jasperensis,
P. burlingtonensis, Dielasma chouteauensis, and two species of Brachy-
thyris (but not suborbicularis) from the Banff shale at Jasper’. Compared
with ‘“‘the Illinois section, it is clear that both faunas are dominantly Osage
(Burlington and Keokuk). Chester affinities are suggested by Chonetes
chesterensis and Productus inflatus’. He notes that the “spiriferoid
fauna is higher stratigraphically. Its correlation would be with the
Rundle or younger limestones of more southern sections, although the two
faunas represent different facies, and have little in common”’.

The Mississippian beds in the Rocky Mountains, along the Alaska
Highway, have also been studied by Laudon and Chronic (1947, 1949),
who have placed them in one unit, the ‘Kindle’ formation, which is said to
rest unconformably on dark shales of Upper Devonian age (Fort Creek)
and to attain a thickness of about 400 feet. The section examined out-
crops in the valley of a short tributary of Testa River near mile 381-5;