Arkell.1956.Jurassic..

DINARIC RANGES AND DALMATIA I Q
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characterizes it in Greece and the Apennines. Here the red marly limestones
also yield some Upper Pliensbachian and basal Bajocian (Opalinum
Zone) ammonites (Saxl, 1916; Magnani, 1942). The connexions with
Greece were discussed by Renz (1904, 1908, 1927).
The next-youngest dated fossiliferous rocks are the Lemesf Beds of
Dalmatia, a thick series of flaggy to fissile, compact limestones (Plattenkalke),
overlain by thick-bedded limestones with chert lenses, then 20-30 m.
of spotted limestones, and finally unfossiliferous dolomite of unknown
age (Furlani, 1910). At the base is a limestone yielding only a coral,
Cladocoropsis mirabilis (Felix), of interest because it occurs in similar
limestone in Cyprus (p. 352). The overlying Plattenkalke strongly
resemble those at Solnhofen in Bavaria and contain some of the same
species of fossils, including ammonites, and are probably of about the
same age. Figured ammonites are Lithacoceras pseudoulmense (Furlani)
and Taramelliceras dinaricum (Furlani), both new species, but 23 other
species are recorded, including Aspidoceras longispinum (Sow.), Neochetoceras
steraspis (Oppel), suggesting the Lithographicum and Beckeri
Zones. Virgatosphinctes cf. denseplicatus (Waagen) alone is a misfit in
the list and is probably misidentified.
Limestones ascribed to the Tithonian, but seldom on adequate palaeontological
evidence, have been recorded from Croatia (Vogl, 1916) to
Albania (Bukowski, 1911; Nopcsa, 1929), sometimes transgressive on the
ophiolite series; but some of the occurrences accepted even by Kossmat
(1924) are said to be really Triassic (Ledebur, 1941, p. 495; Jovanovic,
1951a).
GREECE AND THE IONIAN ISLES
The magic islands and mountains of Greece and the Aegean, the
white marble promontories set among blue gulfs, and the outer rampart
of Crete, were all blocked out by faulting and minor folding in the Pliocene
and Quaternary. The potency of these late movements may be judged
from the occurrence of Pliocene deposits at 1700 m. above sea-level in
the northern Peloponnese, while off the SW. coast the present sea bed is at
3000 m. below the surface. The existing upraised blocks represent in
turn the ruins of a complicated chain of mid-Tertiary fold and thrust
mountains which continue the Dinarides in an open curve, first southwards
then swinging round SE. and finally east or NE. to join the rias coast of
western Anatolia. The highest existing arc of these folds forms the
Pindus Mountains, the backbone of central Greece; the outermost forms
Crete and swings round to Rhodes.
Facies belts in the Mesozoic and Eocene rocks roughly follow the strike
of the mid-Tertiary folds (fig. 20). How far these facies belts reflect
original palaeogeography is problematic. Most likely the evidence of
Mesozoic and Eocene palaeogeography has been mutilated and falsified
beyond hope of reconstruction by thrusting and nappe-formation. The
date of the main movements is mid-Miocene. They affect the latest
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