PERMIAN PELECYPODS IN THE LOWER QUARTERMASTER FORMATION, TEXAS

The age of the Quartermaster formation of Oklahoma and Texas has been the subject of some controversy, being variously given as late Permian or Triassic (?). Fossils have not been reported from these beds until the present discovery of a faunule in the lower part of the Doxey shale at the base of the Quartermaster. Three species are recognized, Naticopsis transversus (Beede), Schizodus oklahomensis Beede, and Myalina acutirostris, n. sp. These forms characterize the recently described Whitehorse fauna and indicate close relationship of the enclosing beds with the Whitehorse formation, even though the Quartermaster fossils occur more than a thousand feet above the lowest fossiliferous horizon of the Whitehorse. If the Whitehorse is Guadalupian (late Permian) in age, then the fossiliferous Quartermaster beds probably are also to be correlated with some part of the Guadalupian or perhaps Ochoa of western Texas