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Lyell, Charles, Sir, 1797-1875

"The Student's Elements of Geology"


Although some of the German lignites called Brown Coal belong to the upper parts
of this series, the most important of them are of Lower Miocene date, as, for
example, those of the Siebengebirge, near Bonn, which are associated with
volcanic rocks.
Professor Beyrich confines the term "Miocene" to those strata which agree in age
with the faluns of Touraine, and he has proposed the term "Oligocene" for those
older formations called Lower Miocene in this work.
LOWER MIOCENE OF ITALY.
In the hills of which the Superga forms a part there is a great series of
Tertiary strata which pass downward into the Lower Miocene. Even in the Superga
itself there are some fossil plants which, according to Heer, have never been
found in Switzerland so high as the marine Molasse, such as Banksia longifolia,
and Carpinus grandis. In several parts of the Ligurian Apennines, as at Dego and
Carcare, the Lower Miocene appears, containing some nummulites, and at Cadibona,
north of Savona, fresh-water strata of the same age occur, with dense beds of
lignite inclosing remains of the Anthracotherium magnum and Anthracotherium
minimum, besides other mammalia enumerated by Gastaldi.


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