The Asenvågoya Conglomerate is a thin (c. 6 m) conglomeratic body composed of mass-flow deposits and enveloped by braided-stream sandstones and conglomerates. The section studied represents the proximal part of a small-radius alluvial fan built out from the basin margin towards a flood basin. The fan was possibly generated by escarpment creation, or rejuvenation, in response to syndepositional faulting along the basin margin, and comprises sand-matrix-supported and clast-supported, sheet-like conglomerates. There is an upward change through the sequence from stream flow and surging mass-flow, through fully turbulent mass-flow and sheet flow to cohesive mass-flow deposits and then a return of braided-stream alluvium at the top of the sequence. The fan wedge demonstrates the wide range of textures possible within a ‘mass-flow” system.

Volcanic activity, the result of crustal differentiation during the Hercynian orogeny, generated eight explosive eruptions in the Vilancós region of the Spanish Pyrenees. The volcanic products comprise the Erill Castell Volcanic Formation of Stephanian age, which crops out as a 20 km long, WNW-trending strip < 2 km wide dipping steeply to the south.The Vilancós region represents a small fragment of an originally extensive regional terrain of silicic centres.

The explosive eruptions mainly generated strongly peraluminous and phenocrystal garnet-bearing subaerial ignimbrite facies. Proximal intra-formational breccias represent a substantial volume of the preserved erupted product and one phreatoplinian deposit is exposed. Mass-flow deposits are common, and small-volume basalt, andesite and rhyolite lava flows, minor tuffs and palaesols also occur.

Electron microprobe data show that each garnet-bearing member of the Vilancós region has a distinct garnet composition. This is used as geochemical fingerprinting tool to aid mapping and correlation between proximal intra-formational breccias and ignimbrite of the same eruption. Within one debris-flow deposit (the Vilancós Breccia Member) at least three garnet populations occur. Two of these are derived from pyroclastic members within the mapped region, the other comes from an unexposed rhyolite lava source.

New trepostomatous bryozoan species, Paralioclema winsnesi sp. nov., Paralioclema mariaholmensis sp. nov. and Paralioclema sp. cf. mariaholmensis are described from the Lower Triassic succession of Spitsbergen. The investigated bryozoan faunas are associated with coarse sandstones, calcareous siltstones and shelly limestones. The bryozoan colonies are mostly well preserved in situ, and show limited evidence of transportation. Some zoarial fragments show bioerosion. The conodont species Neogondolella elongata, Ellisonia triassica, Neospathodus dieneri and Neospathodus svalbardensis extracted from the investigated horizons are Dienerian–Smithian in age.

The Sulitjelma Gabbro in the central Norwegian Caledonides has been dated with the U/Pb zircon/sphene method to 437±2 Ma. Geological relationships as well as trace-element geochemistry and Nd and Sr isotopic compositions suggest that the gabbro and associated dyke swarms and pillow lava formed during the initial stages of back-arc spreading. The age constrains the timing of juxtaposition of an older island-arc terrane and continental-margin lithologies exposed within the Caledonian nappes. The age of the gabbro is similar to that of the Solund–Stavfjord Ophiolite in west Norway, and confirms that spreading-related magmatism and marginal-basin development took place along the margin of Iapetus in late Ordovician–early Silurian times.

It is proposed that north–south crustal extension and related sedimentary basin formation commenced in the early Miocene. This extension is believed to be related to a spreading of a thickened crust as a result of Palaeogene compression. That such spreading commenced virtually immediately after the cessation of this compression is considered to be due to the high thermal profile of the crust in that area at the end of the Palaeogene.

An upper Santonian fauna dominated by the curved baculitid Boehmoceras Riedel, 1931, occurs as phosphatic moulds in the Tombigbee Sand Member of the Eutaw Formation in Mississippi and Alabama, and also is reworked into the base of the Mooreville Chalk; a similar assemblage is present in the middle part of the Pen Formation of the Big Bend area, Texas. The assemblage is: Pseudoschloenbachia (Pseudoschloenbachia) mexicana (Renz, 1936), Placenticeras syrtale (Morton, 1834), Reginaites leei (Reeside, 1927a), Reginaites exilis sp. nov., Texanites (Texanites) sp. juv. cf. gallicus Collignon, 1948, Texanites (Plesiotexanites) shiloensis Young, 1963, Texanitinae incertae sedis, Hyphantoceras (?) amapondense (van Hoepen, 1921).Glyptoxoceras spp., Boehmoceras arculus (Morton, 1834) and Scaphites (Scaphites) leei Reeside, 1927a, form I. The assemblage is referred to the uppermost Santonian Texanites (Plesiotexanites) shiloensis zone of the Gulf Coast sequence. Common occurrence of Scaphites (S.) leei I and Reginaites leei suggest correlation with the Upper Santonian Desmoscaphites erdmanni zone of the U.S. Western Interior; common occurrence of Boehmoceras arculus (= B. loescheri of European authors) suggests correlation with the Marsupites–granulata zone at the top of the North German Santonian. These data strengthen intercontinental correlation of the Santonian–Campanian boundary sequence. They also provide a biostratigraphic link to a numerical age of 84.2±0.9 Ma from a bentonite at a slightly lower level in the Tombigbee Sand Member of the Eutaw Formation in Mississippi.