Low-temperature eclogite-facies rocks from Syros and Tinos (Cyclades, Greece) include meta-igneous blocks of unclear origin (meta-olistostrome or tectonic mélange) with very high trace element concentrations (e.g. Zr up to 4850 ppm; Y up to 475 ppm). The unusual geochemistry is considered to be the result of metasomatic alteration in a subduction-zone environment. Locally, metasomatic exchange with an ultramafic matrix further enhanced compositional anomalies. A concordant U–Pb zircon age of 78±1 Ma recorded for an omphacitite from Syros is interpreted as the time of pre-Eocene high-pressure metamorphism in the Cyclades. Zircon dates of 61 and 63 Ma for a jadeitite from Tinos possibly indicate an additional discrete event (deformation?). These results are a first geochronological indication that high-pressure metamorphism in the Cyclades commenced significantly earlier than indicated by previous white mica chronology which provided ages between c. 50 and 40 Ma.

A collection of conodonts, including Dapsilodus obliquicostatus (Branson & Mehl), Distomodus cf. kentuckyensis Branson & Branson, Ozarkodina oldhamensis (Rexroad), and Panderodus sp., has been obtained from brachiopod coquinas in the lower part of the La Chilca Formation in the Precordillera of west-central Argentina. This conodont fauna, the first to be recorded from the Llandovery in South America, can be referred to the D. kentuckyensis Biozone, and is interpreted to represent an interval in the middle Rhuddanian to lower Aeronian stages. This age assignment is supported by graptolite data from the lower third of the La Chilca Formation beneath the conodont-bearing interval. The brachiopods associated with the conodonts belong to the Afro-South American Realm, but include a high percentage of North Atlantic and cosmopolitan genera. The conodont taxa present are widespread in the tropical zone (Laurentia, Baltica, etc.). This suggests that the pronounced conodont faunal provicialism in the Upper Ordovician had disappeared in the Lower Silurian, where high- and low-latitude conodont faunas appear to be closely similar.

The Chianti Mountains is an important sector of an E-verging regional thrust-related fold (the so-called Tuscan Nappe) extending along the whole length of the Northern Apennines. This thrust system involves the Tuscan Sequence superposing the Macigno sandstones onto Cervarola-Falterona sandstones, both of which are sedimented in adjacent foredeep basins. Detailed field mapping and analysis of superposition relations among tectonic structures, as well as correlation between structures and syntectonic deposition, has allowed Chianti Mountain evolution to be interpreted in terms of three main stages of deformation.

The D1 stage resulted in the NE-directed synsedimentary thrusting of the Macigno onto the Cervarola-Falterona sandstones, while large NE to ENE-vergent thrust-related folds developed during the two successive deformation stages (D2 and D3). Fault-propagation folds developed during the D2 stage, and were affected by the Main Chianti Mountains Thrust (MCMT) during the successive D3 stage. In particular, the D3 stage has been correlated to the development, during the Pliocene period, of the hinterland Upper Valdarno Basin, which was previously considered to be an extensional basin. In fact, this continental basin formed along the eastern margin of the Chianti Mountains, ahead of the MCMT that also produced a shortening of the basin fill. With the beginning of the Quaternary period, the tectonic regime switched to extensional, as manifested by the development of a normal fault system on the opposite basin margin.

The data presented here allow us to infer that the Chianti Mountains thrust system (D2 and D3) developed during a time interval spanning from the Late Miocene (∼12 Ma) until the Late Pliocene (∼2 Ma) periods. In the Northern Apennines, polyphase thrusting recorded by cover rocks has been related to the activity of basement thrusts, which have been recently evidenced by geophysical data. In this context, the two latest stages of deformation recognised in the Chianti Mountains have been attributed to the activity of the Abetone–Cetona crustal thrust, the deformational effects of which propagated forward in the sedimentary cover.

The full stratigraphical context of the type materials of Psigraptus arcticus and P. lenzi from Rock River are given, as well as a new occurrence of the Psigraptus–Adelograptus Zone in the Upper Canyon, Peel River of Canada's Yukon Territory. A new monotypic genus Chigraptus is created for a quadriradiate anisograptid graptolite with four unbranched first-order stipes, a horizontal to slightly reclined rhabdosome and isolate autothecae. The genus is found only at the base of the Early Tremadoc Anisograptus–Staurograptus Zone. Chigraptus may have given rise to the Late Tremadoc Psigraptus by a reduction in first-order stipes and by increased reclination.

The Ordovician sedimentary and igneous rocks of the English Lake District host a widespread suite of epigenetic metalliferous veins dominated by copper sulphides with abundant arsenopyrite, pyrite and accessory galena and sphalerite. New field and microstructural evidence from examples of this suite at Coniston, Wasdale, Honister, Newlands and Borrowdale shows that the veins were strongly cleaved during the Early Devonian (Emsian) Acadian orogenic event. The principal evidence includes the continuity of wall-rock cleavage fabrics with pressure solution seams in the veins and consistently orientated cleavage through enclosed, rotated wall-rock fragments and chloritic mats. There is also widespread complex intracrystalline deformation in quartz, cataclasis of arsenopyrite and pyrite, fracturing and/or buckling of bladed hematite, and growth of quartz or mica-fibre strain fringes. Chalcopyrite was partially or totally remobilized, enabling it to migrate along quartz crystal boundaries, and invade brecciated pyrite. Previous K–Ar Early Devonian age determinations for the mineralization are considered to have been reset. The pre-Acadian age of this mineralization, its style and relationship to the volcanic rocks permits a genetic link with the final phases of Caradoc magmatism.

The British Isles lay at a palaeolatitude of 4°S during the Early Carboniferous (Courceyan–Arundian) period. This paper examines fossil gymnosperm wood from ten localities in western Ireland and southern Scotland in order to analyse palaeoclimate. Fifty-two percent of the 77 fossil wood specimens studied exhibit growth rings that possess subtle, discontinuous ring boundaries and ring increments of narrow but variable width. These growth rings are qualitatively and quantitatively analysed, and are shown to bear a close similarity to growth rings in modern araucarian conifer woods; these araucarian growth rings are formed in response to tropical rainfall seasonality linked to monsoonal circulation. The findings of this study therefore support earlier palaeoclimatic interpretations, based on sedimentological evidence, which suggest that the British Isles experienced a monsoonal climate during the Early Carboniferous (Courceyan–Arundian) period.

Based on outcrop studies and borehole data, six bedded lithofacies and two reef types are recognized within the Much Wenlock Limestone Formation of the English Midlands and Welsh Borderland. The lithofacies are interpreted to represent a series of carbonate shelf environments extending from below storm wave-base to well above fair weather wave-base. In common with many other shallow marine carbonate depositional systems, the principal controls on lithofacies development were hydrodynamic energy, the supply of fine clastic sediment, and patterns of colonization of the sea floor by organisms. Reef distribution was probably controlled by the nature of the substrate, water circulation, and rate of siliciclastic sedimentation. A depositional model is proposed which incorporates biostratigraphical evidence suggesting that the formation youngs to the west on the northern part of the shelf. Deposition of the Much Wenlock Limestone Formation there began in the West Midlands, where 12 m of microbial limestone were lain down in a mid-shelf setting during a local regression. The remainder of the shelf was dominated by low energy siliciclastic deposition at that time. The West Midlands then returned to somewhat deeper water, lower energy deposition, the resulting impure calcareous muds becoming diagenetically changed into the nodular limestone lithofacies. That lithofacies is commonly overlain successively by the interbedded limestone and silty mudstone lithofacies, and then the crinoidal grainstone lithofacies. This vertical lithofacies sequence is uniform over the entire northern part of the shelf, reflecting a gradual decrease in water depth. The crinoidal grainstone lithofacies was deposited as a wave-influenced carbonate sandbody which prograded from east to west. Lithofacies sequences on the southern shelf are laterally impersistent, probably due to greater tectonic instability and topographical variablity.

New dinosaur specimens from the uppermost Cretaceous of Spain represent the first record of a lambeosaurine hadrosaurid from Europe. This discovery, which consists of skull, mandible, and postcranial remains from the Tremp Basin (Lleida Province, Catalonia), is particularly unexpected because lambeosaurines are otherwise well known from western North America and central and eastern Asia. Originally named Pararhabdodon isonensis, a species previously regarded as a basal iguanodontian dinosaur, new material indicates that Pararhabdodon is in fact a primitive member of the lambeosaurine clade. The presence of lambeosaurines on the Iberian Peninsula at the very end of the Cretaceous period is likely due to vicariance rather than dispersal. The distribution of hadrosaurids suggests biogeographic differences across the European archipelago at the end of the Cretaceous.