Fucoid meaning

In descending order they embrace the following subdivisions, whose thickness in the district of Durness is estimated at about 2000 ft.: (e) limestones, dolomites and cherts, with numerous organic remains; (d) grit and quartzite, with Saltarella and Olenellus (Serpulite Grit); (c) calcareous shales and dolomites, with many annelid casts and sometimes Olenellus (Fucoid Beds); (b) Upper Quartzite, often crowded with annelid pipes (Pipe Rock Quartzite); (a) Lower Quartzite - their original upper limit can nowhere be seen, for they have been overridden by the Eastern Schists in those gigantic underground disturbances already referred to, by which these rocks, the Archean gneiss and Torridonian sandstone, were crumpled, inverted, dislocated and thrust over each other.

The Cambrian system - including the Upper (Durness-Eriboll Limestone) and the Lower (Serpulite grit, Fucoid Beds, Quartzite) - forms a narrow band which can be traced for too m.

Certain markings on slates and sandstones, such as the "fucoids" of Scandinavia and Scotland, the Phycoides of the Fichtelgebirge, Eophyton and other seaweed-like impressions, may indeed be the casts of fucoid plants; but it is by no means sure that many of them are not mere inorganic imitative markings or the tracks or casts of worms. Oldhamia, a delicate branching body, abundant in the Cambrian of the south-east of Ireland, is probably a calcareous alga, but its precise nature has not been satisfactorily determined.

In the lower series are, in descending order, the "Serpulite grits" or "Salterclla beds," the "Fucoid beds" and the "Eriboll quartzite," which is divided into an upper "Pipe rock" and lower "Basal quartzite."