An Outline of the Tertiary Geology of Burma

Abstract

For more than a quarter of a century the Tertiary geology of Burma has been the subject of investigation from the point of view of the petroleum resources of the country. A vast amount of detailed information must be stored up in the private files of the various oil companies operating in Burma, and it is a source of continual regret to the geologist that at least some of this information—much of which has great scientific but little commercial value—cannot be made public. Although there exists Dr. Noetling's important but misleading monograph on the supposed “Miocene Fauna of Burma”, published in the Palæontographia Indica, 1901, it is only within the last decade that the Tertiary stratigraphy has been seriously considered from a palæontological standpoint, and for this progress the officers of the Geological Survey of India are almost entirely responsible. In this direction immensely valuable results have already been obtained, though the study is scarcely more than in its infancy.