A General Report of the Geological and Palaeontological Survey in Maragheh Area, North-West Iran, 1973

Abstract

The present article is a general report on the excavation of the bone beds in Maragheh area, N. W. Iran. The excavation has been done at four sites in Dareh-e Gorg, near Mordagh, in autumn of 1973. Many fossil bones were sampled and those dispositions were recorded. The fossil materials excavated in this time were listed, including many cranial and postcranial bones of Hipparion, Antelope, and other Bovidae, Carnivores, Choerolophodon, etc. The fossil bone was obtained from the sediments of 130 m thick in Mordagh area, consisting mainly of the alternations of tuffaceous sandstone and mudstone. Those are assignable to the lower part of the Maragheh Formation. The six tephra were recognized as the distinct marker beds in those sediments. Then, the sedimentary environment is presumed. Directions of natural remanent magnetization of 9 sites were measured. Six pyroclastics including one ash flow of basement were dated by fission-track method and the age of the Maragheh fauna was considered as 6.6 to 6.9 my.