The extent to which persistent, rather than transient, fissures (wide planar voids) can exist along upper crustal faults is important in assessing fault permeability to mineral and hydrocarbon-bearing fluids. Variscan (late Carboniferous) faults cutting Dinantian (Lower Carboniferous) limestones on the Gower peninsula, South Wales, host clear evidence for fissures up to several metres wide. Evidence includes dendritic hematite growth and elongate calcite growth into open voids, spar ball and cockade breccia formation, laminated sediment infill and void-collapse breccias. Detailed mapping reveals cross-cutting geometries and brecciation of earlier fissure fills, showing that fissures were formed during, rather than after, active faulting. Fissures therefore probably formed by geometric mismatch between displaced fault walls, rather than by solution widening along inactive faults.

Core material from proven or probable Silurian sedimentary rocks beneath East Anglia has been re-examined. Four recognizable facies probably represent an environmental transition from anoxic basin slope or outer shelf through oxygenated outer shelf to storm-dominated inner shelf. This transition could have occurred laterally, from east to west across the Anglian Basin, or in time, from Llandovery (early Silurian) up to Př (late Silurian). Partial biostratigraphical constraints allow either interpretation, but the regional setting favours a marked facies transition through time as the Anglian Basin shallowed prior to the Acadian Orogeny. Reddening of the Silurian is mostly secondary beneath the sub-Triassic unconformity.

The Welsh Basin was an area of enhanced Early Palaeozoic subsidence on the northwestern margin of the Eastern Avalonian microcontinent. It is bordered to the southeast by the Midland Platform and to the northwest by the smaller Irish Sea Platform (Fig. 1). The sedimentary rocks of the basin and its flanking platforms range from Lower Cambrian through Lower Devonian. The sequence is dominantly marine, with abundant volcanics in the Ordovician. A basinwide change to non-marine facies is preserved in the Lower Devonian, heralding basin inversion and the culminating Acadian (late Caledonian) Orogeny.

A revised stratigraphy is presented for the rocks which lie between the Upper Cretaceous Semail ophiolite and its post-emplacement sediment cover of uppermost Cretaceous to Tertiary age. Above the pelagic sediments of the ophiolite (Suhaylah Formation, Cenomanian–Turonian) occur ophiolite-derived clastic sediments (Zabyat Formation, ?Turonian–?Campanian) related to early stages of ophiolite emplacement. These formations are structurally overlain by the Batinah Complex, comprising Triassic to Cretaceous lithologies, all previously equated with the Hawasina rocks that now lie tectonically beneath the ophiolite. We recognize a lower melange unit to the complex, which demonstrably includes Hawasina lithologies. The melange formed by superficial rather than deep processes, but the mechanism by which Hawasina material was supplied to the ophiolite surface is unproven. The upper unit of the Batinah Complex shows a coherent stratigraphy which contrasts with that of the Hawasina. It comprises three main allochthonous tectonic sheets, within which we recognize three formations and one other informal unit. The upper Batinah Complex may have been tectonically derived not from the now subjacent Arabian margin but from another margin with a passive Mesozoic history.

The evidence is reviewed for the timing of collision between the microcontinent of Eastern Avalonia (southern Britain and adjacent areas) and the Laurentian continent. Recent palaeomagnetic results placing Eastern Avalonia in a high (50°) southern latitude in mid Ordovician time are now consistent with faunal evidence for the first time. The resulting apparent polar wander path is evaluated and suggests that Eastern Avalonia detached itself from a southern peri-Gondwanan latitude in the early Ordovician, moved northwards, and approached Laurentia by the late Ordovician. Its western corner probably impinged on Laurentia in the early Silurian and it docked against the Laurentian margin during Silurian and early Devonian time with a component of anticlockwise rotation.

This kinematic history is supported by a compilation of sediment dispersal patterns on Eastern Avalonia. A low-volume Ordovician and earliest Silurian supply from within the microcontinent was overwhelmed in late Llandovery time by a large volume of southwest-derived turbidites, probably from the uplifting impact zone to the west. This source was later augmented by a high-volume clastic supply to the north margin of the microcontinent. Eastward migration of this source through Wenlock and Ludlow time reflects the progressive anticlockwise docking of Eastern Avalonia against the Laurentian margin. The earliest sign of a large-volume supply from Baltica is in the late Wenlock, arguing against any earlier hard collision.

White mica (illite) crystallinity data, derived mostly from borehole samples, have been used to generate a contoured metamorphic map of the concealed Caledonide fold belt of eastern England and the foreland formed by the Midlands Microcraton. The northern subcrop of the fold belt is characterized by epizonal phyllites and quartzites of possible Cambrian age, whereas anchizonal grades characterize Silurian to Lower Devonian strata of the Anglian Basin in the southern subcrop of the fold belt. Regional metamorphism in the Anglian Basin resulted from deep burial and Acadian deformation beneath a possible overburden of 7 km, assuming a metamorphic field gradient of 36 °C km-1. Late Proterozoic volcaniclastic rocks forming the basement of the microcraton show anchizonal to epizonal grades that probably developed during late Avalonian metamorphism. Cambrian to Tremadoc strata, showing late diagenetic alteration, rest on the basement with varying degrees of metamorphic discordance. During early Palaeozoic times, much of the microcraton was a region of slow subsidence with overburden thicknesses of 3.3–5.5 km. However, concealed Tremadoc strata in the northeast of the microcraton reach anchizonal grades and may have been buried to depths of 7 km beneath an overburden of uncertain age.