The marine Maentwrog Beds comprise a repetition of sand and mud facies and follow a non-sequence. A shallow water depositional environment is inferred from the nature of the basal unit (with stromatolites and intraformational conglomerate), and hummocky cross-stratification and mud-draped erosion surfaces. The bulk of the formation was deposited between fair weather and storm wave base, the sand facies representing storm depositional events.

The ophiolitic complexes within the Indoburman orogenic belt form a conspicuous N-S line along the eastern margins of Manipur and Nagaland. The rock assemblages consisting of mafic-ultramafics are associated with deep sea pelagic sediments of the Disang Group (Lower Cretaceous-Eocene). The ultramafics in part, represent the oceanic crust and upper mantle material that formed the basement on which the radiolarites and other pelagic sediments were deposited. The fossil radiolaria present in the cherts suggest that the orogen took its foundation during late Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous time. The westward obduction of the flysch ophiolites in the form of large thrust sheets was possible during underthrusting of the Indian plate beneath the Burmese. The position of the ophiolitic belt defines the Indoburman suture zone.

Summary. Pleistocene deposits exposed at Alton Road Quarry, Farnham in 1980 have been sub-divided into two formal stratigraphical units of ‘member’ status. The ‘Wrecclesham Gravel’ is the lowest unit and consists primarily of fluvial sands and gravels. Silts which occurred as a channel fill within this member contained a macro- and micro-fossil flora indicative of open country conditions and included a species of moss previously unreported from the European Pleistocene. Tentative thermoluminescence dating indicates an Early Devensian age for this unit, although radiocarbon dating of the plant macrofossils yielded an age of a B.P. The overlying ‘Farnham Silty Loam’ is separated from the Wrecclesham Gravel by a discontinuous and variable thickness of matrix-supported gravels interpreted as a slope deposit. The Farnham Silty Loam appears to be, at least in part, of aeolian origin. Mineralogical investigations suggest that it is predominantly of local derivation, whilst thermoluminescence dating suggests that it is of Late Devensian age.

A course of action is described for obtaining an English translation of a Russian geological text. It is suggested that the Russian ‘language barrier’ in this field is largely psychological.

Summary. Quartz-keratophyres from an ensimatic island arc on Bømlo, southwest Norwegian Caledonides, resting on the Lykling ophiolite, have yielded a Rb/Sr whole rock age of 535 ± 46 Ma. This Cambrian age, which is a minimum age of formation for the ophiolite, indicates an early phase of subduction, corresponding with the orogenic activity known from northern Norway, i.e. the Finnmarkian. Before Middle Ordovician time, the ophiolite and ensimatic arc had been obducted onto continental crust and deformed, as they are unconformably overlain by a volcanic complex of subaerial rhyolites and andesites which have yielded Rb/Sr whole rock ages of 464 ± 16 and 468 ± 23 Ma respectively.

Summary. The late Triassic (Rhaetian) Cotham Member in southwest Britain was deposited in a shallow, dominantly freshwater lagoon and contains a bed of synsedimentary deformation which can be traced for at least 25 km. The bed includes microfaults and plastically deformed slump-folds. In south Wales and north Somerset the top of the bed is slightly eroded and desiccation cracks up to I m deep are present. The deformation was probably caused by earthquake activity and associated uplift in the north Somerset-south Wales area. Earthquake activity is inferred to have been part of the early Cimmerian tectonic phase in northern Europe. The bed of synsedimentary deformation is a stratigraphic 'event' which can be used for correlation in this area.