The Flagstone Bench Formation ranges in age from earliest Triassic to Norian (Late Triassic) and is exposed in the Beaver Lake area of the northern Prince Charles Mountains. This sandstone-dominated formation rests conformably on the Bainmedart Coal Measures and represents the upper part of the Permian–Triassic Amery Group. It is divisible into three members: the Ritchie, Jetty and McKelvey members (in ascending order). Nine sedimentary facies assignable to three facies associations (major channel, crevasse/fan and flood-basin deposits) are recognized within the formation. Ritchie Member sedimentation took place during a transition from consistently hygric to seasonally dry conditions and the unit comprises sandstone-dominated, sheet-like channel deposits interspersed with few, thin, mottled, haematite-rich flood-basin siltstones. Deposition took place under fluctuating discharge conditions chiefly within the channel tracts of axially (northwesterly/northeasterly) flowing, low-sinuosity braided rivers. The Jetty Member shows a gross upward-fining profile dominated in the lower part by poorly sorted pebbly sandstones and in the upper part by ferruginous mudcracked siltstones, mottled palaeosols, calcrete and thin massive sandstone sheets. This unit reflects deposition of easterly directed alluvial fans and extensive flood-basin silt under a semi-arid climatic regime. The Upper Triassic sandstone-dominated McKelvey Member shows a return to axial drainage along the Lambert Graben with sedimentation occurring primarily within low-sinuosity braided channel tracts under wetter climatic conditions.

M. B. Edwards comments: Of all the geological occurrences he had seen, this was the most remarkable and revealing. For him it was a spiritual place, and the journey was a pilgrimage; he used this word himself. This was now the seventh time he was making this journey. Thus wrote Rosendahl (1945, p. 22; my translation from Norwegian) about the geologist Sederholm. Decades later, after dozens more publications of innumerable additional outcrops, the ‘Reusch's Moraine’ exposure of upper Proterozoic glacial tillite resting on a glacially striated pavement (Reusch, 1891) remains unique and significant.

Writing about this exposure, Jensen & Wulff-Pedersen (1996) concluded ‘There is no evidence for glacial origin or contribution for the diamictite material’ (p. 137) in the Bigganjargga tillite. This discussion explains why I disagree with their conclusions.

Preliminary multidisciplinary investigations were carried out in a 105 m thick late Pleistocene terrestrial sequence in the Lamayuru basin, Ladakh Himalaya. Palaeomagnetic studies reveal a reversal of polarity at about 35 ka BP. This is the only report of this reversal event in the late Pleistocene terrestrial sequences of the Indian subcontinent. The valley fill sequence is the product of an interplay of lacustrine with fluvio-deltaic to colluvial processes. Four fossiliferous horizons have yielded ostracods and gastropods indicating shallow freshwater conditions. The Lamayuru lake was created by tectonically induced instability about 35–40 ka BP, an event that may be represented widely throughout the Himalaya.

A 5 m long permineralized trunk from the Upper Kellwasser member of southern Morocco represents the first record of a large trunk of an identifiable species of Callixylon, C. erianum, from Gondwana. This occurrence constitutes the most reliable evidence based on plant megafossils for a floral connection between Laurussia and Gondwana in late Devonian times and for a proximity of these continents in Famennian times. The potential of this trunk for studies of the architecture and growth patterns of the earliest trees with a gymnospermous type of arborescent habit is discussed.

The Upper Carboniferous Kent Coalfield lies concealed beneath various Mesozoic formations, its southern areas lying about 20 km north of the commonly accepted position of the main Variscan Deformation Front. However, despite intense intra-coal deformation, the existing literature is ambivalent about compressional Variscan features in Kent, the general view being that coal deformation is largely the product of the depositional environment. The main deformation is interpreted here as the result of Variscan compression, the structural style being imposed by the sandstone-dominated lithology. This conclusion is necessitated by the regularity of deformational structures revealed by mine workings, and supported by coal sequence irregularities suggestive of thrusting, especially in the lower Westphalian strata, all of which is paralleled in parts of the South Wales Coalfield. The Kent data indicate that, as in South Wales, a zone of thrusting many tens of kilometres wide lies in advance of the main deformation front. Structural trends are consistent with an overall swing in the front from east–west across much of central-southern England, to more northwest–southeast across northeastern France. This swing may represent a transpressional transfer zone, within which stress deflection and block rotation produced thrust vergence oblique to the overall direction of maximum compression.

Four hundred and eighty-four whole rock dolomite samples from early Proterozoic strata have been analysed for carbon isotopes. The carbon isotope composition is strata-specific, but abrupt variations have been observed between the Jianancun and the Daguandong as well as the Daguandong and Huaiyincun formations. The carbon isotope composition of dolomites is believed to reflect δ13C of oceanic total dissolved inorganic carbon during the early Proterozoic and reflect changing rates of organic carbon burial.

The onshore record of Cenozoic glaciation in the Antarctic Peninsula region is limited to a number of isolated localities on Alexander Island, the South Shetland Islands and in the James Ross Island area. In the James Ross Island area, Late Cretaceous sedimentary rocks are unconformably overlain by a unit of diamictites and tuffs, which occur at the base of the James Ross Island Volcanic Group. These rocks are here defined as the Hobbs Glacier Formation, and on the basis of palynological studies are assigned to a Miocene (?late Miocene) age. The diamictites are interpreted as representing glaciomarine sedimentation close to the grounding line of either a floating ice shelf or a grounded tidewater glacier in a marine basin. Provenance studies indicate that the glacier was flowing from the Antarctic Peninsula towards the southeast. Volcanic tuffs conformably overlie the diamictites and are interpreted as representing deposition in a periglacial delta front setting in either a marine or non-marine basin, away from direct glacial influence. The Hobbs Glacier Formation and overlying James Ross Island Volcanic Group help to enhance our understanding of the Neogene glacial chronology of West Antarctica.

The Upper Silesian and Małopolska blocks are situated near the southwestern boundary of the East European Platform within the Trans-European Suture Zone. The Lower Palaeozoic lithologies of the blocks reveal different stratigraphic and diastrophic development. In the Upper Silesian Block, unmetamorphosed and gently folded Lower Cambrian to Ordovician sedimentary rocks rest on a Cadomian basement. The Lower Cambrian is represented by an older (sub-Holmia) Borzęta Formation and a younger (Holmia) Goczałkowice Formation. The thickness of the Cambrian lithologies increases from the southwest towards the lateral part of the block. In the Małopolska Block Palaeozoic and Precambrian lithologies are represented by regionally metamorphosed and intensely folded Lower Cambrian–Vendian clastic rocks which are unconformably overlain by Ordovician–Lower Silurian carbonates and Upper Silurian clastic rocks. The crystalline basement of the Małopolska Block has yet to be recognized. The Lower Palaeozoic sediments of both blocks are overlain by Devonian and Carboniferous rocks. The blocks are in direct contact along a narrow tectonic zone, a part of the largely concealed Hamburg–Kraków fault zone, in which tectonic evolution has taken place spasmodically with strike-slip movements predominating.

Crystalline crust examined along the seismic profile LT-7 is subdivided into four blocks separated by distinct vertical fractures. The northeastern block belongs to the East European Craton (Baltica). Its three-layer structure is similar to that of the Svecofennian crust farther to the northwest. The southeastern block reveals typical, two-layer Variscan crust. Both central blocks have a peculiar structure not comparable with the crust of the Danish and North German areas: two lower layers, with velocities identical or close to that of the cratonic lower and middle layers, are extremely thin, and an upper layer, 8–11 km thick, shows surprisingly low velocities. This upper layer probably represents the folded and weakly metamorphosed Lower Palaeozoic sequences, although the connection with undeformed epicratonic cover cannot be excluded. Significant differentiation of crustal types in different segments of the Trans-European Suture Zone favours the concept of tectonostratigraphic terranes which collided with Baltica.

The Tornquist Fan is a northwestward widening splay of late Carboniferous–early Permian fault zones in the region of Denmark emanating from the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone in northern Poland. The crust–mantle boundary shows an undulating topography which correlates with the main tectonic features of the area. Zones of high average velocity through the consolidated crust coincide with pronounced positive Bouguer gravity anomalies in the deep basins and in the border zone of the shield. Less pronounced, similar correlation to gravity is found for the thickness of the lower crust, whereas the thickness of the upper crust in parts is inversely related to the gravity anomalies. Some magnetic anomalies appear to be related to the gravity anomalies. The positive features are interpreted as magmatic bodies that formed during late Carboniferous to early Permian transtensional movement along the faults of the Tornquist Fan, which explains pull-apart structures in the area and the Ringkøbing-Fyn basement High. The magmatism has strong implications for the subsequent formation of the regional Mesozoic basins. Localized dextral strike-slip movement on the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone became distributed over the Tornquist Fan, which formed part of the rigid Baltic Shield and was situated at the northwestern end of this major, long-reaching Central European zone. As defined by late Cretaceous–early Tertiary compressional inversion structures, the Sorgenfrei-Tornquist Zone cuts across the Tornquist Fan area.