The protoliths of mylonitized augen gneisses exposed in the southern sector of the Menderes Massif (West Turkey) are calc-alkaline, peraluminous, S-type, late- to post-tectonic tourmaline- and garnet-bearing, two-mica leucogranites. They cut and post-date the fabrics of the ‘main Menderes metamorphism’ which took place between the early Eocene and early Oligocene and intrude metamorphic basement rocks comprising the so-called ‘Palaeozoic schist envelope’ of the massif. They are themselves cut by an extensive network of tourmaline-rich dykes. Chemical, mineralogical, isotopic and field relations suggest that the granitic protolith crystallized from a boron-rich, water-saturated melt, derived from partial melting of metagreywacke in the lower crust during peak Barrovian-type metamorphism. The protolith was probably emplaced during lateorogenic extensional collapse of the thickened crust in west Turkey during late Oligocene time.

The Caledonides of the west of Ireland provide a well-exposed and well-mapped example of an oblique collision zone. The east-northeast trending Deer Park and Achill Beg Fault system is a crustal scale ductile sinistral strike-slip duplex of late Ordovician age, imbricating late Precambrian granulite facies lower crustal rocks, near eclogite facies supracrustal rocks, up to amphibolite facies Dalradian metasedimentary rocks and greenschist facies Cambro-Ordovician rocks. This fault system is correlated with a pre-Devonian component of the Highland Boundary Fault system in southern Scotland. In the Clew Bay area, the high pressure-low temperature facies metamorphic rocks, in tectonic contact with greenschist facies Cambro-Ordovician rocks, are together interpreted as an accretionary prism complex related to northwestward directed subduction. Both of these are allocthonous terrains with respect to the Dalradian terrane to the north (North West Mayo). To the south, the Cambro-Ordovician rocks docked with a probable Dalradian block containing ultramafic intrusives (Deer Park Complex) during the late Ordovician. The Deer Park Complex and South Mayo Trough linked earlier, during the Arenig.

Silurian and Lower-Middle Devonian redbed successions sit unconformably on the metamorphic rocks. Deposition and deformation of these cover rocks was controlled by oblique strike-slip movements on the Leek Fault whose strike swings from west-northwest to north-northeast, following earlier basement trends, as it is traced eastwards from Clew Bay. The Leek Fault System may be correlated with the Leannan Fault of northwest Donegal, a splay of the Great Glen Fault system of central Scotland. East of Clew Bay, this sinistral shear generated local dilation on the more northerly trending bend of the Leek Fault. Lower and Middle Old Red Sandstone redbeds were developed here. The west-northwest trend of the Leek Fault in Clew Bay acted as a compressional bend during these sinistral movements and transpressional southwest directed thrusting developed in Silurian rocks. Post-Middle Old Red Sandstone pre-late Tournaisian dextral displacement on the Leek Fault reversed this pattern with transtension in Clew Bay allowing intrusion of small carbonated peridotite bodies into Silurian rocks and easterly directed thrusting of Middle Old Red Sandstone rocks east of the Bay on the transpressional north-south bend.

A tectonic model for the region is presented here. This model involves a northwestward directed subduction system, 150 to 750 km of Arenig sinistral strike slip movement, and eastwards insertion of the Connemara block with formation of the Ordovician South Mayo Trough as a pull-apart basin. Subsequently, a further 130 to 650 km eastward displacement of rocks took place south of the Deer Park Fault in later Ordovician times. The magnitudes of these estimates are directly proportional to an assumed maximum wavelength of 1500 km for promontories on the original Laurentian margin, and using the current juxtaposition of terranes, a minimum wavelength of 300 km is inferred.

The Upper Allochthonous Thrust Complex (UATC) of the Bragança massif in northern Portugal contains a set of ultrabasic rocks interthrust with granulites. The ultrabasic rocks have refractory silicate mineral and whole rock compositions which indicate an origin as depleted mantle. Phase relationships of harzburgite samples suggest that they formed in equilibrium with high-Mg picritic melts created through a high degree of mantle partial melt extraction. Chromite in small podiform deposits has 100 Cr/(Cr + Al) ratios of 62–85, which are consistent with crystallization from such melts. Most of the chromite composition parameters are similar to those of ophiolite deposits except for the high ferric iron contents (2.77–8.95 wt% Fe2O3). Such enrichment is a feature of chromite from island arc magmas. It is suggested that the extensive partial melt extraction and chromite mineralization in the ultrabasic rocks occurred in the upper few kilometres of island arc mantle. The ultrabasic rocks were tectonically emplaced into a granulite and eclogite-bearing arc-continent collision complex during the Early Ordovician and subsequently, in the mid-Devonian emplaced over the Central-Iberian terrane.

In 1923, H. C. T’an and O. Zdansky collected remains of an ankylosaurid dinosaur in the Late Cretaceous Wangshi Group of the Laiyang region, in eastern Shandong (China). Apart from a few caudal vertebrae, this material, which is kept at the Palaeontological Institution of the University of Uppsala (Sweden), was never described or figured. It includes a well-preserved sacrum with the attached right ilium and part of the presacral rod, caudal vertebrae, a left femur and a dermal scute. This material is referred to an ankylosaurid of the genus Pinacosaurus Gilmore, 1933, on the basis of the widely divergent ilium bearing a strong ventral ridge and of the slenderness of the femur. In the absence of cranial material, a specific attribution is difficult and the Uppsala material is referred to as Pinacosaurus cf. grangeri (P. grangeri being the only generally accepted species of Pinacosaurus). This is the first record of Pinacosaurus outside the Gobi Basin of Mongolia and northwestern China. In the Gobi Basin, Pinacosaurus has been reported only from the Djadokhta Formation or its equivalents, of supposed Campanian age, and it is suggested that at least the part of the Wangshi Group which yielded the Shandong Pinacosaurus may be of roughly the same age as the Djadokhta Formation.

The radioelement distribution and content of the Lundy granite, a coarse-grained megacrystic granite of Tertiary age, has been measured using a portable gamma-ray spectrometer in order to assess fractionation and alteration processes in the granite. Results indicate a systematic variation of K, Th and U (with a few notable exceptions) that follows a partially concentric distribution to lower concentrations inland. The plateau region of the island (particularly the southern half) is relatively depleted in all radioelements. Over the island, measurements of K vary from 1.3–4.9 wt %, Th varies from 5.0–20.3 ppm and U varies from 2.0–12.5 ppm. A petrographic, electron microprobe and autoradiography examination of the granite indicates that the radioelements mainly reside in discrete major and accessory minerals, of which K-feldspar (K), biotite (K), monazite (Th), xenotime (U), tungsteniferous columbite (U) and uraninite (U) are the most important. Uraninite is rare, being preserved only in fresh samples which come mainly from abandoned quarries. Mass balance modelling indicates that up to 76.6% of uranium could reside in uraninite and where this has been leached by secondary processes such as hydrothermal alteration or weathering then the present radioelement content no longer reflects the original rock composition. Fission track evidence is presented to show the pathways along which uranium has been mobilized from or within the granite. Secondary sites of radioelements include fractures cross-cutting all major minerals (but especially quartz), grain boundaries, altered cores of plagioclase feldspar and occasionally yellowy brown mixed chlorite/smectite replacement product after biotite. Biotite itself may exhibit secondary tracks along cleavage traces. Combined effects of crystal fractionation (primary variation) and secondary alteration best explain the distribution of radioelements, with K controlled by fractionation of the major phases K-feldspar and biotite, Th by fractionation of the accessory mineral monazite (±xenotime and uraninite) and U contents by uraninite and tungsteniferous columbite. Secondary processes have removed much of the uraninite leaving behind indeterminate Fe—U material along fractures and residual U (and Th) enrichment within altered major minerals. There is some evidence to suggest that late radioelement-bearing fluids precipitated monazite and uraniferous zircon along fractures during the waning stages of magmatic activity.

The Caledonian Hecla Hoek succession in Ny Friesland, eastern Svalbard has been interpreted, for many decades, to be a continuous stratigraphic sequence. Early Palaeozoic and Neoproterozoic strata in its upper parts pass more or less conformably down into amphibolite facies rocks (Stubendorffbreen Supergroup) at depth. Recent isotopic age-determination and structural studies have indicated that the Stubendorffbreen succession is tectonostratigraphic and made up of at least three major thrust sheets. This paper provides new data from two meta-igneous units within the succession, the Bangenhuk and Instrumentberget gneisses. Both are granitoid sheets, consisting mainly of red, strongly lineated gneisses of monzogranitic composition; the Bangenhuk unit also contains some lenses of little deformed granitoids, as well as cross-cutting aplite dykes, amphibolitized dolerites and subordinate metasedimentary rocks. The latter are locally cut by granitoids. U—Pb zircon dating of six samples of variably deformed Bangenhuk granitoids, including one cross-cutting aplitic dyke, has yielded ages between 1720 and 1770 Ma, the higher values generally from the less deformed samples. The Instrumentberget gneissic granite yielded an age of 1737+46−41 Ma. These ages are interpreted to date the time of intrusion of the granitoids at around 1750 Ma; the younger ages may have been slightly lowered by Caledonian deformation, particularly those from specimens located close to a major fracture (the Billefjorden Fault Zone) in Wijdefjorden—Austfjorden. U—Pb dating of titanite from the least deformed granitoid also yields comparable Palaeoproterozoic ages; in the more deformed rocks, however, titanites give evidence of Caledonian ductile deformation at c. 410 Ma. The Rb—Sr system of the corresponding whole rock samples has been disturbed and yields an errorchron age of about 1650 Ma and, for some samples, an impossibly low initial Sr ratio. The Sm—Nd system may be more intact and yields initial εNd values of −2 to −3, suggesting some contribution from older crustal material to the granitoid magmas. The results indicate the presence of extensive units of Palaeoproterozoic granitic basement within the Lower Hecla Hoek succession of Ny Friesland, supporting the hypothesis that the latter is composed of tectonically intercalated basement and cover units.

The type specimen of Regnosaurus northamptoni Mantell, a partial right mandible, is redescribed and compared with a wide variety of dinosaurian taxa. We suggest that Regnosaurusis not an ankylosaur or a sauropod as previously thought, but represents the fragmentary remains of a ‘primitive’ stegosaur. Regnosaurus and Huayangosaurus share two derived characters, suggesting that these two genera should be provisionally regarded as sister taxa. The implications of these findings for stegosaur evolution and biogeography are discussed briefly.

In the established European conodont zonation the Paroistodus originalis Zone represents an interval in the upper middle Arenig or middle Lanna/Volkhov Stage. I have so far found it at 14 Swedish localities, represented in my collections by more than 116 000 conodont elements from 79 limestone samples. Presence/absence data together with major frequency shifts among conodont taxa allow the recognition of five successive phases within the P. originalis Zone and the corresponding chron. Phase 1 occurs in the basal part of the zone, where an increase in frequency of Triangulodus brevibasis and P. originalis distinguishes it from immediately subjacent beds. Phase 2 corresponds to the (transgressive) lower middle part of the zone with an influx of Periodon, and Drepanoistodus basiovalis replacing D. forceps. Phase 3 is equivalent to the upper middle part of the zone with generally more than 30% of the zonal denominator and with Microzarkodina parva replacing M. flabellum. Phase 4 is a short (regressive) event where the frequency of Paroistodus is drastically lowered, and phase 5 corresponds to the upper part where Paroistodus again increases. The zone is particularly well represented at Lanna, Province of Närke, in south-central Sweden, where it also seems possible to connect the conodont succession with the standard trilobite zonation. Thus, at Lanna as well as at Finngrundet in the Bothnian Bay, Megistaspis (M.) simon first appears in the basal lower middle part of the P. originalis Zone.

Geological studies along the southern margin of the Midland Valley of Scotland, together with previously published work, suggest a strike-slip model for its evolution during Silurian and Devonian times. The data emphasize the ‘older Caledonian’ influence and persistent, albeit intermittent, transcurrent activity along the Southern Upland Fault which is the boundary between the Midland Valley and Southern Upland terranes. A comparison of the geological characteristics of the Silurian and Devonian rocks in the southern Midland Valley with characteristics from strike-slip basins elsewhere suggests that the Midland Valley rocks were deposited and locally deformed under sinistral strike-slip regimes with two main episodes of transtension — the first acting in Llandovery—Wenlock times and the second in Lower Old Red Sandstone times. A strike-slip model involving transpression may explain why there is a strong unconformity between the Llandovery—Wenlock and the Lower Old Red Sandstone strata in the Pentland Hills and Girvan inliers but only a marked change in sedimentary facies at the equivalent horizon in the inliers of the central Midland Valley. The Lower Old Red Sandstone was probably deposited in a transtensional regime, but the succession is complicated by the widespread Lower Old Red Sandstone calc-alkaline magmatic event. The mid- Devonian deformation is also variable in its effects and the more easterly trend of the en echelon fold axes relative to the Southern Upland Fault trend is indicative of sinistral transpression. Carboniferous and older rocks were affected by smaller dextral movements on the Southern Upland Fault and related faults which started during Namurian times when a change to an overall dextral regime took place.

The mid- to Upper Permian Radok Conglomerate, the lowermost formation of the Permo-Triassic Amery Group, crops out in the Beaver Lake area of the northern Prince Charles Mountains, East Antarctica. Outcrop is confined to a north-south elongate, fault-bounded corridor interpretedas a remnant of a continental extensional basin formed during Late Palaeozoic times. This basinforms a small part of the much larger Lambert Graben, a major continental rift system. The RadokConglomerate consists of interbedded conglomerates, argillaceous sandstones, siltstones, and minor, thin carbonaceous siltstones and coals. Textural, petrographic, palaeocurrent and other data suggestlocal derivation from Precambrian massifs to the immediate west, during a period of fault activity.The unit is a minimum of 400 m thick, the base being unexposed, and grossly fines upward. It isabruptly overlain by quartzo-feldspathic sandstone-dominated rocks of the Upper Permian Bainmedart Coal Measures. Seven recurrent lithofacies have been recognized with the Radok Conglomerate, and are interpreted as the products of poorly-confined stream flow, sheet flow and sediment gravity flow processes, suspension fallout in shallow standing water, and organic sediment accumulation in peat-forming wetlands. The unit as a whole is interpreted as having accumulated as a coarse alluvial apron along the western margin of a ?graben extensional trough. Similar, though poorly exposed, facies are exposed on the eastern margin of the basin and may reflect similar depositional systems. Towards the top of the Radok Conglomerate, typical Radok lithologies are interbedded with quartzo-feldspathic sandstones derived from the south, precursors of the overlying Bainmedart Coal Measures. Interference between transverse (Radok) and axial (Bainmedart) drainage is possibly related to progressive infilling of extensional topography, thereby allowing axially flowing rivers to avulse increasingly into the Beaver Lake region from the main Lambert Graben.

Prominent aeromagnetic anomalies around Ballantrae in southwest Scotland have long been associated with extensive outcrops of basic/ultrabasic igneous rocks in the Midland Valley terrane. However, recent reprocessing of data from a 1978 detailed aeromagnetic survey has demonstrated excellent correlation between discrete aeromagnetic features and certain magnetic greywacke formations within the early Caradoc Tappins Group. This heterogeneous unit forms the oldest and most northwesterly tectonostratigraphic tract in the Southern Uplands terrane and is characterized by relatively high detrital magnetite(and serpentinite) content and elevated values for Cr and Ni. This suggests original close sedimentary links with an ophiolitic terrane not unlike the presently adjacent Ballantrae Complex (or its extensive along-strike correlatives), a consideration which has important implications for terrane reconstructions in this region.

Two methods of estimating the size of the graptolite zooid are described and discussed. It is possible to size a zooid by reference to cortical bandages or with reference to modem Rhabdopleura and its tubes. These two methods give very different results, with the first suggesting small zooids relative to thecal size and the second suggesting zooids that filled their thecae completely. Comparison is made with the evidence available from rare cases of preserved zooids. When all these observations are considered in the light of the ontogeny of modem pterobranchs, an ontogenetic sequence for the graptolite zooid can be inferred which helps to reconcile the two methods of estimating zooid size. This sequence postulates that most skeletal building occurred early in the life of the zooid, before it developed the capacity to feed or to reproduce, and it implies that only the first of three stages in the zooid's life is recorded in the skeleton. The later stages occurred without normally leaving any trace on the preservable remains of the colony. Finally, there is discussion of the effects which different zooid sizes would have had on some aspects of the functional morphology of a theca and on the hydrodynamic behaviour of the rhabdosome as a whole.

New collections of trilobites have been made from Dinantian rocks in North Devon, distributed among seven genera. Of these, Wagnerispina, Archegonus (Phillibole), Liobole, Aprathia, and probably Lichanocoryphe gen. nov., are primitive phillipsiids belonging to the subfamily Archegoninae. Reasons are given here for the others, Tawstockia and Spatulina, previously considered to be primitive phillipsiids of the subfamily Cystispininae, to belong to the higher phillipsiids, as effaced, blind members respectively of the Linguaphillipsiinae and Cummingellinae. The species of these genera from North Devon discussed here, three of which are new, are either small-eyed or blind, and form an atheloptic assemblage; they occur in hemipelagic sediments of the Codden Hill Chert Group in the Barnstaple district, and the Kersdown Chert Formation in the Bampton district. Ammonoids associated with the trilobites indicate an early Viséan, late Chadian age for the fauna, and the same or similar trilobite species and subspecies occur in the Březina Shales of Moravia, suggesting that they are approximately coeval.

The Fenland basin is filled with unconsolidated Holocene marine and freshwater deposits. Stratigraphic studies of the basin date back to 1877. This paper reviews the various lithostratigraphic schemes which have been proposed. Particular attention is paid to the presently accepted lithostratigraphy. Examples and a case study of a newly surveyed area are used to highlight its failings. Many of the difficulties experienced in Fenland are common to problems of lithostratigraphic classification in coastal lowland environments, as is demonstrated by reference to recent debate in the southeastern North Sea. In Fenland, as a result of the shortcomings of the various schemes, it is proposed that a new lithostratigraphy with formal stratotypes is devised. Suggestions are made as to the form this new stratigraphy could take. In the meantime, an informal lithostratigraphy should be adopted which has no regional or chronostratigraphic connotations.

The palaeomagnetism of a Late Ordovician dolerite suite widely distributed in the northern Welsh Borderlands has been investigated to evaluate (i) regional rotations associated with later deformations and (ii) Lower Palaeozoic latitudes of Eastern Avalonia. Only local effects of Acadian and Variscan overprinting are observed in this region and most bodies appear to preserve a primary cooling-related magnetization. Magnetic properties in the Breidden Dolerite are related to primary igneous differentiation and a dual polarity characteristic remanence (D/I = 333.1/−71.6°, 6 sites, α95 = 10.4°) predates Late Ordovician folding. Dolerites elsewhere in the Breidden Hills Inlier record the same reversal of remanence and the combined mean (D/I = 314.3/−72.8°) is rotated clockwise from the mean remanence (D/I = 291.5/−59.5°, 21 sites, α95 = 6.0°) in a similar dolerite suite within the adjoining Shelve Inlier which is also of dual polarity and predates Late Ordovician folding. The difference in magnetic declinations is similar to the rotation of Late Ordovician fold axes and fracture systems between the two inliers and is probably the resultant effect of local rotation, possibly about a constraining bend in the Severn Valley Fault System. The Moel-y-Golfa Andesite of Caradocian (Soudleyan) age has a remanence (D/I = 294.3/−50.4°, 13 samples, α95 = 2.8°) which study of an adjoining volcanic conglomerate shows to be of primary cooling-related origin. The equivalent palaeolatitude is ˜ 31° S in early Caradocian times. A similar estimate is derived from a probable diagenetic overprint in the contemporaneous Castle Hill Conglomerate at Montgomery. The Mynydd-Bryn Andesite in the Berwyn Inlier, of probable similar origin and age to Moel-y-Golfa, has a magnetization of opposite polarity but similar inclination (D/I − 239.1/47.4°, 14 samples, α86 = 5.5°). Declination differences between these volcanic outcrops are a possible signature of later block rotations between the Lower Palaeozoic inliers and identify the importance of terrane definition in analysis of Lower Palaeozoic palaeomagnetic results from the Caledonides. A dolerite sheet complex at Hendre in the Berwyn Hills has a younger remanence (D/I − 182.3/ − 3.0°, 20 samples, α95 = 7.8°), probably of mid-Carboniferous age.

The collective Upper Ordovician results define a rapid movement of the Avalonian Plate, probably spanning no more than 10 Ma, from ˜ 30° S in early Caradocian times to ˜ 57° S prior to folding of the dolerites in late Caradocian to early Ashgill times. This motion into higher southerly palaeolatitudes marks a reversal of the motion of Avalonia into more shallow southerly palaeolatitudes between Arenig and Llanvirn times and shows that Ordovician closure of the Iapetus Ocean was more complex than recognized hitherto.

High-grade basic and acidic meta-igneous rocks are widespread in the bimodal amphibolitic—felsic gneiss complexes, which are characteristic formations of the ‘Middle Allochthonous Unit’ from eastern and southern French Massif Central. The metabasites from the Lyonnais and Doux complexes are chemically diverse and range from N-MORB type tholeiitic to transitional types. The two populations are not related by fractional crystallization or crustal contamination processes and their chemical characteristics reflect differences in their mantle sources. An ensialic setting is supported by the crustally-derived character of some of the associated felsic rocks, but the presence of N-MORB-type metabasites argues for an extensional environment. This bimodal association compares well with the magmatism of rifted continental margins and may reflect a transitional stage between continental rifting and oceanic crust formation during the Cambro-Ordovician spreading event.

Several recent plate reconstructions of the Iapetus Ocean describe the margins of Baltica as passive until Silurian collision with Laurentia. Yet there is a variety of evidence to suggest that the accretion of the Scandinavian Caledonides began by latest Cambrian—early Ordovician subduction and imbrication of the passive continental margin. One such evidence is provided by eclogites occurring in the Seve Nappe Complex. Previous work by others dated the high-pressure metamorphism at 503±14 Ma (Sm—Nd garnet-omphacite age), and the uplift through the c. 500°C isotherm at 491±8 Ma (40Ar/39 Ar hornblende plateau ages). The protolith dolerites of the eclogites have been correlated with Iapetan rift-facies dolerites of the Baltoscandian margin. If valid, such a correlation implies early Caledonian destruction of the margin, and thus modification of those plate reconstructions which require passive margins around Baltica in latest Cambrian-early Ordovician time. This paper provides a substantially improved basis for the concept that the protoliths of eclogites and their host rocks derived from Baltoscandian rift basins. The chemical similarity between coronitic dolerites and dolerites of the rift basins pertains not only to element concentrations and variations but also to the specific T-MORB signature shared by the two groups. The variation of psammitic and pelitic schists, graphitic schists, calc-silicate gneisses and marbles of the eclogite host rocks equates with sequences of sandstones, siltstones, shales, black shale, quartzite, dolomite and limestones of Baltoscandian palaeobasins.

At the same time, the paper calls attention to the remarkable preservation of structural and metamorphic contrasts within the eclogite-bearing thrust sheets of the Seve Nappe Complex. Such disequilibrium is generally ascribed to the kinetics of localized deformation and fluid infiltration into dry crust. This paper presents evidence that disequilibrium is found also within inferred subducted sedimentary complexes, which are generally assumed to be pervasively flushed by fluids. Preservation of sedimentary, volcanic and magmatic structures and fabrics, and of both undeformed dolerite dykes and eclogitized dykes demonstrates that neither deformation nor high-pressure metamorphism were pervasive.

The Clarke Head fault megabreccia was produced within a major Late Palaeozoic transcurrent structure (the Minas fault system) which separates the displaced Meguma terrane of southern Nova Scotia from rocks more typical of the Avalon Superterrane. A large clast of anomalously high grade metabasite embedded in the clay matrix of the fault megabreccia displays a fresh granulite facies mineralogy (2-pyroxene + garnet + plagioclase) and mylonitic to ultramylonitic textures induced by anhydrous shearing deep in the roots of the fault zone. Whole rock geochemistry reveals the granulite protolith to have been a continental, within-plate mafic magma transitional between theoleiitic and alkaline. The original geochemical signature has survived strong dynamic recrystallization at granulite grade. Well-preserved REE abundances testify to a lack of metasomatic fractionation during high grade shearing under water-absent conditions. Sm—Nd data indicate that the basic granulite has a TDM age of c. 1 Ga. Isotopic comparisons with adjacent areas reveal similar TDM ages both north and south of the Minas fault system. The high grade clast may be typical of the lower crust in Nova Scotia and is thought to offer a rare window into the deep crust of the Avalon Superterrane in North America.

Volcanic rocks of Neoproterozoic age form several fault-related inliers in Wales and the Welsh Borderland. Those in North Wales and the Borderland have been investigated recently, while those in southwest Wales remain little studied. In southwest Wales, basic to intermediate lavas and related volcaniclastic rocks and silicic tuffs in the St David’s area comprise the Pebidian Supergroup, which is intruded by minor basic intrusions, while the Coomb Volcanic Formation, exposed farther east around Llangynog, is composed of basic and silicic lavas and silicic tuffs, intruded by a single dacite sill and numerous dolerite sills. New geochemical data show that both the Pebidian and Coomb basalts have subduction-related characteristics. The Coomb basalts are geochemically similar to those of the Uriconian Group of the Welsh Borderland, while the Pebidian basalts bear a similarity to volcanic rocks recovered from the Bryn-teg Borehole, in the Harlech Dome. Uriconian-type volcanic rocks may underlie much of the Midlands Microcraton, with the Welsh area underlain by volcanic rocks of Pebidian type.

Non-marine redbeds (Permian and Triassic) in the island of Mallorca consist of a 0.4 km-thick alluvial succession that passes upwards into siliciclastic–carbonate coastal deposits. Tectonics and sealevel changes have been the main influences in their evolution. Low in this succession (the ‘Areniscas y lutitas de Port des Canonge’ unit) sandstone sheets with lateral accretion surfaces (macroscale inclined strata) and mudstones with frequent exposure structures are interpreted as the products of a sinuous alluvial system and floodplain. Climatic fluctuations are considered to be responsible for some significant up-section changes in the evolution of the alluvial deposits. Low-angle or horizontally stratified sandy units, interpreted as the result of flash floods, alternate upwards with point-bar deposits in the ‘Areniscas de Asá’. The hydrological response to minor climatic changes was evidently nearly instantaneous due to the lack of significant vegetation cover.

During accumulation of mudstones and sandstones of the overlying ‘Lutitas y Areniscas de Son Serralta’ unit, the interpreted environment of deposition changed from a distal braidplain, mainly constructed by superposition of sandy bedforms with straight or linguoid crestlines in low sinuosity river channels, into a coastal plain with evidence of both continental and marine influences. The overlying carbonate platform (Muschelkalk) marks the development of a more homogeneous marine environment resulting from the Tethyan transgressive event that affected the whole peri-Mediterranean realm during the Anisian (middle Triassic).