THE PLIOCENE MICROMAMMALIAN FAUNA FROM JINGLE, SHANXI——A DISCUSSION OF THE AGE OF JINGLE RED CLAY

<正> The Cenozoic deposits of Jingle area was first explored by Teilhard de Chardin & Young in 1929, and six species of mammals: Hipparion houfenense, Gazella blacki Antilospira licenti, Elephas sp., Cervus sp., and Rhinocerotidae gen. indet, were found from the Red Clay in Loc. 1 (Hefeng). Based on the Jingle Fauna, Teilhard de Chardin & Young concluded that the fossil-bearing layer was situated between the typical Hipparion richthofeni Red Clay (Pontian) and the Sanmenian deposits (Polycene) (Teilhard de Chardin & Young, 1930, 1931) and called it "Upper Pontian". Since then, Jingle Formation (or Jingle Red Clay) has been widely used in the stratigraphic generalization of North China (Pei et al., 1963) although its definition and age assignment have never been cleared up. "Jinglean" was put into use for the first time as a stage name by Li et al. (1984, in Chinese) to represent Early Pliocene tentatively: "It may be equivalent to Early Pliocene, more plausibly, it is later ...... Jinglean was temporarily used here to represent Early Pliocene by tradition." In order to make clear the age of Jingle Red Clay and enrich the Hefeng Fauna, a field survey was made in the Summer of 1986 by Chen Xiaofeng and the author. An assemblage of fossil micromammals was unearthed by means of wet-sieving techniques. About 1 ton of sediments from Hefeng (Loc. 86007, or Loc. 1) and Xiagaoai (Loc. 86008, or Loc. 2) in Jingle county (see fig. 1), yielded over 1000 specimens of small mammals. The specimens are from four layers (see table 1), and the present paper only deals with the micromammals from the sand layer and the Red Clay at Hefeng (fig. 2).

THE PLIOCENE MICROMAMMALIAN FAUNA FROM JINGLE,SHANXI——A DISCUSSION OF THE AGE OF JINGLE RED CLAY

The Cenozoic deposits of Jingle area was first explored by Teilhard de Chardin & Young in 1929, and six species of mammals: Hipparion houfenense, Gazella blacki Antilospira licenti, Elephas sp., Cervus sp., and Rhinocerotidae gen. indet, were found from the Red Clay in Loc. 1 (Hefeng). Based on the Jingle Fauna, Teilhard de Chardin & Young concluded that the fossil-bearing layer was situated between the typical Hipparion richthofeni Red Clay (Pontian) and the Sanmenian deposits (Polycene) (Teilhard de Chardin & Young, 1930, 1931) and called it "Upper Pontian". Since then, Jingle Formation (or Jingle Red Clay) has been widely used in the stratigraphic generalization of North China (Pei et al., 1963) although its definition and age assignment have never been cleared up. "Jinglean" was put into use for the first time as a stage name by Li et al. (1984, in Chinese) to represent Early Pliocene tentatively: "It may be equivalent to Early Pliocene, more plausibly, it is later ...... Jinglean was temporarily used here to represent Early Pliocene by tradition." In order to make clear the age of Jingle Red Clay and enrich the Hefeng Fauna, a field survey was made in the Summer of 1986 by Chen Xiaofeng and the author. An assemblage of fossil micromammals was unearthed by means of wet-sieving techniques. About 1 ton of sediments from Hefeng (Loc. 86007, or Loc. 1) and Xiagaoai (Loc. 86008, or Loc. 2) in Jingle county (see fig. 1), yielded over 1000 specimens of small mammals. The specimens are from four layers (see table 1), and the present paper only deals with the micromammals from the sand layer and the Red Clay at Hefeng (fig. 2).