The Middle and Upper Devonian limestone successions at Torquay and in the Lemon Valley SW of Newton Abbot are described. Lithostratigraphic units are proposed for the Torquay succession. The compositions of the coral faunas in both successions are outlined and contribute, together with the other available faunal evidence, towards a broad internal dating of these limestone sequences. Successions elsewhere in the limestones of eastern South Devon are briefly outlined. On the basis of this evidence facies variations from the margin towards the centre of the carbonate platform in eastern South Devon are demonstrated and interpreted as reflecting the development of barrier reefs along parts at least of the platform margin in Givetian times. The character of the reef-complex, named the Tor Bay Reef-Complex, is briefly compared with Devonian reefs elsewhere.

Analysis of the fracture pattern in the Coniston area of the Lake District indicates that copper mineralization is localized in a series of fractures produced during the main phase of deformation affecting the Borrowdale Volcanic Series. Three events are recognized on the basis of field and textural evidence obtained from polished sections: an early haematite mineralization, correlated with the low grade regional metamorphism affecting the rocks; the main phase of sulphide mineralization, with zoning, which is correlated with a granite intrusion at depth; and a late renewed movement on the veins, with carbonate mineralization, believed to be related to uplift of the granite.

The Larsen Harbour Formation of southern South Georgia is part of an ophiolite sequence of submarine lavas and sheeted dykes emplaced into metasedimentary country rocks. The metasediments are remnants of a pre-Cretaceous continental crust which had been subject to regional metamorphism and polyphase deformation prior to intrusion by a variety of acid and basic igneous rocks (roots of the ophiolitic sequence). It is proposed that the segment of continental crust and the Larsen Harbour Formation formed the floor of a back-arc basin which was infilled during Early Cretaceous time by a thick sequence of volcaniclastic sediments (Cumberland Bay Formation).

Cryphiocrinus Kirk is a genus which may possess a delicate stem, or may lose the stem as an adult, making it essentially eleutherozoic. C. girtyi Kirk, type species, is documented with certainty from Chesterian rocks of Oklahoma and Arkansas for the first time. C. rotundus Kirk is reported from the Renault Formation of Illinois and a possible occurrence in the Pride Mountain Formation of Alabama is noted. The genus has previously been recognized in Chesterian, Upper Mississippian, (Lower Carboniferous), strata exposed in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma, U.S.A. Possible affinity with Hosieocrinus Wright from the Lower Limestone Group (Visean) in Scotland is discussed.

Igneous layering resulting from variations in intercumulus mineralogy has been observed in the Kalka Intrusion in central Australia. The layering is parallel to cumulus layering, and is outlined by a mottled heteradcumulus ‘clump’ texture in leucogabbros, which occur in a generally adcumulate anorthositic sequence. Such intercumulus layering is thought to originate in slow cooling intrusions at times of slow crystal accumulation and/or relatively high rates of intercumulus crystallization when a zone of melt supersaturation (the cumulus nucleation zone) rises above the intrusion floor leaving the intercumulus melt undersaturated with respect to the settled cumulus phases. Adcumulates are produced when the supersaturated zone is coincident with the top of the crystal pile. The morphological elongation of clump plates parallel to the gross layering is probably controlled by the cumulus plagioclase fabric which tends to be planar laminate.

In the pre-Anglian Pleistocene of East Anglia and Essex are unfossiliferous gravels with pebbles of flint, quartz, quartzite, chert and volcanic rocks. All appear to belong to the Kesgrave Sands and Gravels of Rose & Allen (1976), which are largely or wholly fluviatile and probably of Beestonian age. Forty-six of the volcanic pebbles, from three different localities, have been examined microscopically. Almost all are fine-grained acid igneous rocks or vitric tuffs, evidently derived from a single suite. Various possible source-areas are considered, of which North Wales, with its Ordovician volcanics, is thought to be the most likely.