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The Geological Relations of the Oil Shales of Southern Burma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

J. W. Gregory
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Extract

The view from the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking either westward to the sea or eastward over the plains beside the Salween, is of exceptional geological attractiveness. At the foot of the hill the Salween River passes through a breach in the Coast Range to the Gulf of Martaban. To the east picturesque monoliths, tors, and sierras rise abruptly from a vast alluvial plain which lies between the Coast Range and the distant Dawna Mountains on the Burmese side of the Siamese frontier. The interest of the view in September, 1921, was enhanced by uncertainty as to the age of the rocks. The foundation of the Coast Range consists of a blue gneiss, which is worked in large quarries to provide road metal for Rangoon. The Dawna Range, on the eastern side of the basin, is also of coarse gneiss and schist. These Eozoic rocks of both the Coast and Dawna Ranges belong to the Martaban Group of Theobald, who described them as “true crystalline rocks undistinguishable in character from the ordinary gneissose rocks of Bengal”. The sedimentary rocks overlying the Martaban Group belong to the Moulmein Group of T. Oldham, and have been regarded as Carboniferous on the strength of his preliminary determination in 1856 of some fossils from a limestone hill known as the “Duke of York's Nose”, near Moulmein.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , April 1923 , pp. 152 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1923

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References

page 153 note 1 “Geology of Pegu”: Mem. Geol. Surv. Ind., x, 1873, p. 140.Google Scholar

page 153 note 2 Theobald, op. cit., p. 138.

page 153 note 3 See Noetling, “Carboniferous Fossils of Tenasserim”: Rec. Geol. Surv. Ind., vol. xxvi, 1893, p. 96.Google Scholar

page 153 note 4 Since my visit to the field in the autumn of 1921, it has been examined by Dr. G. de P. Cotter for the Geological Survey of India, and a preliminary statement of his conclusions is included in the General Report of the Survey, Rec. Geol. Surv. Ind., vol. liv, 1922, pp. 29–30, 53–5.Google Scholar

page 153 note 5 Palæonlographica, xxxix, p. 193, pl. xxii, figs. 26–9.Google Scholar

page 153 note 6 Loc. cit., p. 191, pl. xxii, figs. 30–3.

page 153 note 7 Q.J.G.S., vol. li, 1895, pp. 347, 348, pl. xiii, figs. 5, 6.Google Scholar

page 154 note 1 During my visit to the Tichara field I had the benefit of the company and guidance of Mr. R. H. Crozier, the consulting mining engineer and metallurgist to Messrs. Moolla Sons, Ltd., who hold a lease of the property. In my inspection of the field I also received courteous help from Mr. Krull, who was specially helpful in collecting fossils, and from Messrs. Wood, who are conducting the boring; I am also much obliged for subsequent information as to the boring results from Mr. H. F. Lang, the Manager of this department of Messrs. Moolla's enterprises.

page 156 note 1 Cotter, op. cit., p. 54.