The Basal Rocks of the Tertiary at Uloa, Zululand, South Africa

Abstract

AbstractAt Uloa in Zululand a nodule bed is the basal formation of a thin group of Tertiary sediments that rests on nearly horizontal Senonian silty mudstones. It contains mammillary, botryoidal, and cylindrical nodules, remanié Lower and Upper Cretaceous mollusca all ferruginized and partly pyritized, silicified Cretaceous wood, worn Tertiary sharks' teeth, and cetacean bone, phosphatized nodules of both Upper Cretaceous and Victoriella-bearing Eocene, and Tertiary glauconitic sandstone pebbles dated at 55 million years.A coquina-like limestone (“Pecten Bed”) overlies the irregular upper surface of the nodule bed disconformably. Consideration of some of the megafossils, the absence of larger Foraminifera, and the presence of Orbulina universa suggest that the “Pecten Bed” is Middle to Upper Miocene in age.Alternations of coarse and fine grained calcarenite layers that overlie the “Pecten Bed” disconformably, may be of youngest Miocene age.The nature of the Tertiary rocks suggests shallow water sedimentation from the Eocene to latest Miocene, with several periods of transgression and regression, and slight epeirogenic or eustatic movement only.