Carbonate-rich glacial deposits from two discrete Vendian glacial periods are described. The older is represented by the 24–40 m thick Petrovbreen Member (E2) of the Elbobreen Formation which contains abundant detrital dolomite. Clasts in E2 and their possible source rocks have positive δ13C and negative δ18OPDB values. In contrast the carbonate mud-fraction of E2 sediments has different cathodoluminescence characteristics from clasts, slightly negative δ13C values, and higher Fe and Mn concentrations than clasts. Oxygen isotopes vary from −2.5 to +4.5‰PDB, thought to be related to various seawater–meltwater mixtures in the depositional environment. Preservation of information about glacial sedimentary environments is attributed to early diagenetic recrystallization forced by excess surface free energy (Ostwald's ripening) and coinciding with sulphate reduction.

The younger glaciation is represented by the Wilsonbreen Formation (170 m) which has a distinctive glaciolacustrine Middle Carbonate Member (W2). W2 contains precipitated periglacial carbonates (with high Mn/Fe ratio): both limestone (rhythmitic and stromatolitic) and dolostone (rhythmites, stromatolites and dolomite-rich sandstones) which are compared with carbonates in modern Antarctic lakes. Evaporitic environments for dolomitic sandstones and stromatolitic dolostones are indicated by heavy oxygen isotope values (up to + 10.5‰PDB), high Na concentration and evidence for dissolved evaporites. High Mn concentration in detrital dolostones in W2 is suggestive of syn-sedimentary dolomite recrystallization in freshwater diamictites and haematitic siltstones.

The carbonate–tillite association ultimately arises from the erosion of underlying carbonates which originated (in this case) under radically different climatic conditions. Glacial depositional waters then became carbonate-saturated as a result of dissolution of detrital carbonate. Massive recrystallization of glacially transported carbonate is proposed as a geologically significant process with considerable potential for palaeoenvironmental analysis. In glacial lakes carbonate precipitated in response to evaporation or photosynthesis. Carbonate precipitation as the result of seawater freezing, or in warm interglacial conditions, is not yet established. Oxygen isotope value are inconsistent (too heavy) with the presence of high-latitude meltwaters, implying that glaciation extended to low latitudes as proposed by Harland.

Time-level plots represent changes of level of sediment surfaces over one, or more, episodes. The durations of the episodes must be specified, because they can vary over many orders of magnitude in different studies. This study is concerned with the relationships between sedimentological episodes, resulting in deposition or erosion of beds, centimetres to metres thick, and stratigraphic episodes resulting in deposition of tens to hundreds of metres. The object of this work is to develop a method of analysing patterns of sedimentological episodes which will allow the examination of their relationship with the stratigraphic rates of accumulation that reflect tectonic and/or climatic controls.

The method plots the sedimentological episodes as a sequence of small time-level vectors, plotted head to tail. The resultant of this vector sequence is the large vector that represents the net change of level over the whole stratigraphic time episode. The gradient of this large vector is the rate of stratigraphic accumulation.

The Chinji Formation (Miocene), Siwalik Group, Pakistan, is a fluvial unit, whose major channel sandstones occur between intervals of floodplain overbank mudstones with minor sandstones. Using time-level plots, interpretation of a 36 m interval from the formation is progressively improved in the light of our growing understanding of the surface processes. Having first outlined a simple first timelevel plot, the following modifications are introduced, and their time and rate significance can be assessed from new plots: (1) thick mudstone episodes are replaced by many thinner episodes; (2) long episodes of hiatus are removed unless marked by distinct soils; (3) episodes are inserted below the sandstones.

Structural analysis of the Lower Allochthon in the north-central Scandinavian Caledonides has allowed the construction of restorable cross-sections consistent with the development of a foreland-propagating linked thrust system. The internal geometry of an antiformal stack, the Njakafjäll duplex, within the Lower Allochthon demonstrates tectonic shortening of c. 50% and suggests an overall predeformational width for the Lower Allochthon in this area of at least c. 130 km, and possibly considerably greater if the buried trailing edge of the Lower Allochthon lies in a comparable position to that farther south in Tröndelag. These results, combined with a stratigraphic analysis of the imbricates within the Lower Allochthon and of the adjoining Autochthon and Middle Allochthon, indicate the development, from Proterozoic through Cambrian times, of two sedimentary basins on the c. 200 km wide continental margin of Baltica bordering the Iapetus Ocean. The basins were separated by a region of basement relief, the Børgefjell domain, above which a reduced sequence of Vendian to Cambrian rocks accumulated. This Børgefjell basement high, and the similar Njakafjäll basement high to the east, subsequently became the sites of antiformal stack development. It is argued that the frequent incorporation of basement into the thrust sheets, together with the thin sedimentary fill of these basins, compared with the much greater fill in basins to the south in Jämtland and to the north of Finnmark, implies major palaeogeographic changes along the Baltoscandian margin, possibly related to early rift geometries. The apparent lack of subsequent foreland basin development in north-central Scandinavia compared with areas to the south may indicate a deeper level of thrust detachment beneath the Middle Allochthon to the north, such that any foreland basin sediments have been removed in the hangingwall and subsequently eroded. An alternative possibility is a primary absence of foreland basin development that may relate to a differing response to thrust loading by continental lithosphere which had been variably thinned during the earlier rift regime.

At least 2000 km3 of relatively uniform dacitic magma have been erupted from the Cerro Galan caldera complex, northwest Argentina. Between 7 and 4 Ma ago several composite volcanoes predominantly of dacitic lava were constructed, and several large high-K dacitic ignimbrites were erupted. 2.2 Ma ago the > 1000km3 Cerro Galan ignimbrite was erupted. The predominant mineral assemblage in the ignimbrites is plagioclase-biotite-quartz-magnetite-ilmenite; the Cerro Galan ignimbrite also contains sanidine. Fe-Ti oxide minerals in the Cerro Galan ignimbrite imply temperatures of 801–816 °C. Plagioclase phenocrysts in the ignimbrites typically have rather homogeneous cores surrounded by complex, often oscillatory zoned, rims. Core compositions show a marked bimodality, with one population consisting of calcic cores surrounded by normally zoned rims, and a second of sodic cores surrounded by reversely zoned rims. The older ignimbrites do not show systematic compositional zonation, but the Cerro Galan ignimbrite exhibits small variations in major elements (66–69% SiO2) and significant variations in Rb, Sr, Ba, Th and other trace elements, consistent with derivation from a weakly zoned magma chamber, in which limited fractional crystallization occurred. The ignimbrites have 87Sr/86Sr = 0.7108–0.7181; 143Nd/144Nd = 0.51215–0.51225, and δ18O = + 10 to + 12.5, consistent with a significant component of relatively non-radiogenic crust with high Rb/Sr and enriched in incompatible elements. Nd model ages for the source region are about 1.24 Ga. 87Sr/86Sr measurements of separated plagioclases indicate that Anrich cores have slightly lower 87Sr/86Sr than less calcic plagioclases, suggesting a small degree of isotopic heterogeniety in different components within the magmas. Pb isotope data for plagioclase show restricted ranges (206Pb/204Pb, 207Pb/204Pb and 208Pb/204Pb = 18.87–18.92, 15.65–15.69 and 39.06–39.16 respectively), and suggest derivation from Proterozoic crustal material(> 1.5 Ga).

Contemporaneous satellite scoria cones and lavas are high-K basalts, basaltic andesites and andesites with SiO2 = 51–57%; K2O = 2–3% and normative plagioclase compositions of An37–48, and may be derived from a mantle source containing both ‘subduction zone’ and ‘within plate’ components. 87Sr/86Sr ranges from 0.7055 to 0.7094 and 143Nd/144Nd from 0.51250 to 0.51290. Variation diagrams such as MgO: SiO2 show two trends, one indicating closed system fractional crystallization and the other crustal contamination. AFC modelling of the open system rocks indicates a parental mantle-derived mafic magma which is itself enriched in K, Rb, Ba, U, Ta/Sm, Ta/Th and Sr, and has 87Sr/86Sr = 0.705–0.706, while the contaminant need not be more radiogenic than the dacitic ignimbrites.

The Cerro Galan dacitic magmas are interpreted in terms of a deep and uniform region of the central Andean continental crust repeatedly melted by emplacement of incompatible-element-enriched, mantle-derived mafic magmas, a proportion of which may also have mixed with the dacite magmas. A component of the crustal material had a Proterozoic age. The magmas derived by crustal melting were also enriched in incompatible elements either by crystal/liquid fractionation processes, or by metasomatism of their source regions just prior to magma generation. Much of the crystallization took place in the source region during the melting process or in mid-crustal magma chambers. The magmas may have re-equilibrated at shallow levels prior to eruption, but only limited compositional zonation developed in high-level magma chambers.

Construction of cross-sections in Bellsund and Hornsund, southern Spitsbergen, using offshore and onshore structural data illustrate the main tectonic units of the region. From west to east these are: a wedge of late Cenozoic clastic sediments; a series of late Palaeozoic to early Mesozoic grabens controlled by basement faults along the west Spitsbergen margin; the Basement Horst, comprising late Precambrian to early Palaeozoic rocks deformed and metamorphosed during a mid-Palaeozoic orogeny; the Fold Belt, which forms a narrow NNW–SSE striking zone of eastward verging folds and thrusts attributed to Eocene inversion of a pre-Cenozoic basin; the Palaeogene Central Basin, deformed into a broad synclinorium and bound to the east by the Billefjorden Fault Zone. This basement lineament shows evidence of Palaeogene reactivation and may be linked to the Fold Belt by a detachment zone beneath the Central Basin. East of Spitsbergen, there is an offshore basin of possible Carboniferous age controlled by the Storfjorden Fault Zone which shows evidence of later inversion to form a positive flower structure.

Silicified flake conglomerates and in situ stratiform stromatolites of the Upper Proterozoic (c. 700–800 Ma) Limestone-Dolomite ‘Series’, central East Greenland, contain well preserved microfossils. Five stratigraphic horizons within the 1200 m succession contain microbial mat assemblages, providing a broad palaeontological representation of late Proterozoic peritidal mat communities. Comparison of assemblages demonstrates that the taxonomy and diversity of mat builder, dweller, and allochthonous populations all vary considerably within and among horizons. The primary mat builder in most assemblages is Siphonophycus inornatum, a sheath-forming prokaryote of probable but not unequivocally established cyanobacterial affinities. An unusual low diversity unit in Bed 17 is dominated by a different builder, Tenuofilum septatum, while a thin cryptalgal horizon in Bed 18 is built almost exclusively by Siphonophycus kestron. Although variable taphonomic histories contribute to observed assemblage variation, most differences within and among horizons appear to reflect the differential success or failure of individual microbial populations in colonizing different tidal flat microenvironments. Twenty-two taxa are recognized, of which two are described as new: Myxococcoides stragulescens n.sp. and Scissilisphaera gradata n. sp.

Hornblende and muscovite within high-grade Caledonian metamorphic rocks exposed in Albert I Land (northwest Spitsbergen) display internally concordant 40Ar/39Ar age spectra providing no record of any post-Silurian thermal history. Both minerals record 420−425 Ma plateau ages indicating that relatively rapid cooling followed Silurian metamorphism. Muscovite within some metamorphic sequences exposed within the Tertiary tectonic zone of Oscar II Land (west-central Spitsbergen) displays a low-temperature 40Ar/39Ar age spectra discordance suggestive of a slight, post-Caledonian thermal disturbance. This is consistent with a post-Palaeozoic thermal overprint documented elsewhere in Oscar II Land and indicates that, at least locally, metamorphism may have accompanied the Tertiary orogeny.