BUNTER  , the name applied by

English geologists to the lower stage or subdivision of the Triassic rocks in the United Kingdom . The name has been adapted from the German Buntsandstein, Der bunte Sandstein, for it was in Germany that this continental type of Triassic deposit was first carefully studied . In France, the Bunter is known as the Gres bigarre . In northern and central Germany, in the Harz, Thuringia and Hesse, the Bunter is usually conformable with the underlying Permian formation; in the south-west and west, however, it transgresses on to older rocks, on to Coal Measures near Saarbruck, and upon the crystalline schists of Odenwald and the Black Forest . The German subdivisions of the Bunter are as follows;—(1) Upper Buntsandstein, or Rot, mottled red and green marls and clays with occasional beds of shale, sandstone, gypsum, rocksalt and dolomite . In Hesse and Thuringia, a quartzitic sandstone prevails in the lower part . The " Rhizocoralhum Dolomite " (R . Jenense, probably a sponge) of the latter district contains the only Bunter fauna of any importance . In Lorraine and the Eifel and Saar districts there are micaceous clays and sandstones with plant remains—the Voltsia sandstone .