Still active Sub-Andean foreland deformation is suggested to have syndepositionally modified the fluvial depositional environments in the Peruvian Amazonian foreland basin throughout Neogene-Quaternary time. Modern fluvial aggradation continues to proceed on a large scale (c. 120 000 km2) in two differing depositional systems. Firstly, various multistoried floodbasin deposits are derived from the meandering and anastomosing rivers within the subsiding intraforeland basins. Secondly, in the northern part of the Pastaza-Marañon basin the largest known Holocene alluvial fan-like formation (c. 60 000 km2) composed of reworked, volcaniclastic debris derived from active Ecuadorian volcanoes, has been identified.

The widespread, poorly known, dissected surface alluvium (terra firme) which covers the main part of the Peruvian Amazonian foreland basin shows further evidence of long-term foreland deformation, and terraces indicate both the effects of tectonism and Pleistocene climatic oscillations. In northern Peru, the surface alluvium was deposited by a Tertiary fluvial system with palaeocurrents to the west and northwest into the Andean foreland basin. In southern Peru, the respective surficial alluvium was part of a post-Miocene fluvial system flowing northeast into the main Amazon basin. Both systems were gradually abandoned when the eastward migrating Andean foreland deformation led to the more distinctive partitioning of the intraforeland basins, and the modern drainage system was created.

Acritarchs are reported from basal Cambrian rock units inthe Cantabrian region of northern Spain that are known to contain archaeocyathan and trilobite faunas. Biostratigraphic correlation of the Iberian sequences with other regions has been hampered by the strong provincialism of these faunas. However, this report of evidently cosmopolitan acritarch taxaestablishes the time equivalence of early Cambrian trilobite faunas from Iberia, Baltoscandia and the East European Platform (EEP). Our data suggest that the detrital deposition of the Lower Cambrian Herreria Formation embraces at least three (and possibly four) Lower Cambrian acritarch zones previously identified in the EEP, eastern Siberia, Baltoscandia, Scotland, Greenland, Svalbard and western North America. The early Cambrian transgression in northern Spain was probably initiated in Talsy times (Schmidtiellus mickwitzi trilobite Zone in Baltoscandia and the EEP), in part corresponding to the Dokidocyathus regularis archaeocyathian Zone of the Middle Tommotian in Siberia.

In the last two years, new palaeomagnetic data from Wales have resulted in radical revision of the Ordovician palaeogeography of Eastern Avalonia, part of the southern margin of the Iapetus Ocean. Combined with Palaeozoic palaeomagnetic data from Laurentia and Gondwana, these data suggest that Eastern Avalonia was a peri-Gondwanide high latitude continental fragment during at least part of Ordovician time, with a palaeolatitude of about 62° S and 51° S in Arenig and Llanvirn time, respectively. This implies a latitudinal width of the early Ordovician Iapetus Ocean between Eastern Avalonia and Laurentia of at least 30°. Geological evidence for the proximity of Eastern Avalonia and Laurentia suggests that the intervening Iapetus Ocean closed during Silurian time, from late Llandovery to early Ludlow. Recent palaeolatitude data from the Iapetus bordering continents are consistent with closure by middle to late Silurian time. New pre-Acadian early Devonian palaeomagnetic data from the Old Red Sandstone places the Welsh Basin at about 17° S, consistent with a palaeogeography in which Laurentia, Baltica, Avalonia, Armorica, and possibly Gondwana, were part of a single supercontinent. Pervasive late Carboniferous/early Permian remagnetization affects the Welsh Basin. The remagnetization is probably associated with fluids emanating from the Variscan thrust front. We do not observe remagnetization associated with Acadian orogeny and the remagnetizations, which have been studied in more detail in North America, appear to be a unique feature of the Variscan-Hercynian-Alleghenian orogeny.

The Lastarria volcanic complex, along the northern Chile–Argentina border, includes three morphostructural components: Southern Spur, Lastarria (the highest cone, 5697 m) and Negriales (a geographically associated lava field, 5.4 km3). Petrographically, the Lastarria complex consists of pyroxene andesites and pyroxene–amphibole dacites. The whole-rock geochemistry shows a bimodial silica variation between 57 and 68%, with peaks at 59–60% and 61.62% SiO2. Petrographie and chemical data indicate different magmatic sources for Lastarria and Negriales. Whole-rock geochemistry can be explained by crustal contamination and crystal–liquid fractionation, with differences in storage times in magma chambers being a major controlling factor. Strong textural, mineralogical and chemical evidence for magma mixing, shortly before explosive eruptions at Lastarria, suggests that this process may have triggered the violent eruptive volcanic activity which characterizes the latest stages of the main cone. Abundant bombs of banded clear pumice and dark scoria in pyroclastic flow deposits are the texturally heterogeneous products resulting from incomplete mixing homogenization.

The first conclusive evidence for Silurian rocks in the Paraná Basin, Brazil, was reported in 1985. This evidence was based on organic-walled microfossils, principally spore tetrads, and associated phytoplankton (‘acritarchs’ and prasinophytes), the first recovered from the Vila Maria Formation on the northeastern rim of the Basin. The spore assemblage was typical of Gray's Microfossil Assemblage Zone I; size-frequency data for the tetrads suggested an early Silurian (early Llandovery; Rhuddanian) age. We now document a new MA Zone I occurrence of spore tetrads together with a few single trilete spores, from the southwestern rim of the Paraná Basin, Paraguay. The single spores are among the earliest known to have normally dissociated from a tetrahedral tetrad. Size-frequency data for the tetrads suggest a late Llandovery, pre-C5 (mid-Telychian) age. These spores, together with phytoplankton and chitinozoans, were recovered from beds laterally equivalent to the Vargas Peña Shale at the type locality from which Llandovery diplograptids and monograptids are known. Llandovery age rocks on the southwestern and northeastern borders of the Paraná Basin, c. 1400 km apart, suggest that early Silurian rocks were extensively distributed throughout southern Brazil and adjacent Paraguay. Close conformity between the age reference obtained with graptolites and spore tetrads again demonstrates the stratigraphic utility of early Silurian spores in providing reliable age determinations for otherwise unfossiliferous rocks. Spore tetrad assemblages available from the Malvinokaifric Realm (South America, Africa, Arabia) represent a distinct phytogeographic unit contrasted with spore tetrad assemblages from the North Silurian Realm of North America and parts of Europe.

An Ediacaran assemblage dominated by an unidentified species of CyclomedusaSprigg 1947, along with species of Ediacaria?Sprigg 1947, BeltanellaSprigg 1947, HiemaloraFedonkin 1982, and Nimbia?Fedonkin 1980, is described for the first time from the Innerelv Member of the Stappogiedde Formation exposed in coastal outcrops west of Tanafjorden on Digermul Peninsula, in northeastern Finnmark, northern Norway. The fossil assemblage is dominated by discoidal forms which share certain affinities with the cosmopolitan genera. Cyclomedusaand Ediacaria. However, our specimens differ from these and other discoidal Ediacaran fossils in the absence of radial sculpture. This, along with a basically concentric organization, are characteristics shared with Kullingiafrom the Dividal Group of northern Scandinavia, the White Sea, Podolia, and northwestern Canada, along with undescribed discoidal remains from the Charnian Supergroup, Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire, England, and the Conception Group, Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland.

Our discovery of an Ediacaran-type assemblage within the Middle Innerelv Member provides support for previous suggestions of a late Vendian age for this sequence. This general conclusion is consistent with the occurrence of early Cambrian taxa, including the trace fossil Phycodes, and the problematical forms Vendotaenia and Sabellidites, in basal portions of the Lower Breivik Formation, within the same stratigraphie section. The lowest formally-proposed faunal zone in northern Scandinavia is the Kullingia Zone, based on the occurrence of the fossil medusoid Kullingia concentrica in Member III (Middle Sandstone C) of the Dividal Group, northern Scandinavia. Kullingiais a distinctly chambered form that was probably pelagic. In contrast, Cyclomedusa,and related genera of the so-called Cyclomedusaplexus, comprise an informal grouping of intergrading, probably benthic, taxa that possess radial and/or concentric organization. In light of the intergradational nature of taxa, present difficulties in taxonomic interpretation and correlation, and the abundance of cyclomedusoids in many Ediacaran assemblages, we suggest that the concept of the Kullingia Zone, as originally defined for northern Scandanavia, be broadened to include the common form genera of the Cyclomedusa plexus, inclusive of the occurrences in the Innerelv Member described herein. It is our hope that additional fieldwork will provide a basis for more refined taxonomic evaluations and biozonation.

Until recently no Cambrian rocks were known in the Llangynog area. Detailed mapping has now revealed a succession of ?Lower and Upper Cambrian rocks overlain by Tremadoc rocks. The Allt y Shed Sandstones (new) rest unconformably on the Precambrian, but have yielded no diagnostic fossils and are tentatively assigned to the Comley Series. Succeeding with faulted or unconformable contact is an Upper Cambrian Merioneth Series succession which includes in ascending order: conglomerates, sandstones and siltstones with olenid trilobites and resembling the Treffgarne Bridge Beds of the Haverfordwest area; micaceous shales and siltstones referred to the Ffestiniog Flags Formation; and black mudstones with calcareous concretions and a rich olenid fauna referred to the Dolgellau Formation. Succeeding the latter with possible disconformity is a succession belonging to the lower part of the Tremadoc Series and earlier than any rocks of that series hitherto recorded from the area.

Detailed mapping of surface and underground karst features at Buchan, in eastern Victoria, has shown that the three river terraces along the Buchan River can be correlated with three levels of epiphreatic development in the nearby caves. Each level represents a stillstand in the denudational history of the area. Uranium series dating of speleothems and palaeomagnetic studies of cave sediments indicate that all three stilistands are more than 730 ka old. The periods of incision separating the stillstands were probably the result of active tectonic uplift. This contrasts with some northern parts of the Southeastern Highlands, which have been stable since the Eocene. The overall amount of incision and uplift at Buchan is small, indicating that the majority of scarp retreat in this section of the highlands must have occurred earlier. The denudation history of the Buchan area over the last 730 ka has seen only 2–3 m of incision, despite the major climatic and sea-level changes that have occurred in that time. Whereas most karst landscapes in the Northern Hemisphere have been extensively modified during the late Pleistocene, the Buchan karst was little affected, and its geomorphology has an older origin.

The Eycott Volcanic Group of the Lake District Lower Palaeozoic inlier consists of basaltic and andesite and and andesite sheets and associated, mainly coarse, volcaniclastic rocks. The volcanic rocks have been regarded previously as interdigitated with, and equivalent in age to, mudrocks of the upper part of the Skiddaw Group (Tremadoc–Llanvirn). Microfloral evidence has been quoted in support of this interpretation, but has not been substantiated by re-assessment of the critical data. Furthermore, a recent examination of the base of the Eycott Volcanic Group has shown that it rests with angular unconformity on the Skiddaw Group. Skiddaw Group rocks beneath the unconformity range in age from possible late Cambrian to early Llanvirn. The lowest part of the Eycott Volcanic Group, the Over Water Formation, consists of siltstones and tuffaceous sandstones yielding a diverse microflora, and is intercalated with two andesite sheets interpreted herein as sills. Since the currently accepted Llanvirn age for the Eycott Volcanic Group cannot be confirmed, the volcanism may have been penecontemporaneous with the Llandeilo–Caradoc Borrowdale Volcanic Group episode. There are implications for a pre-volcanic tectonic deformation episode.

The gabbros of the Tertiary Kap Edvard Holm Layered Serieshave a stratigraphic thickness of more than 5000 m. Earlier work has shown that the range in cumulus mineral compositions is restricted (plagioclase An81—An51; olivine Fo85—Fo66; pyroxenes Ca43Mg46Fe11 to Ca43Mg37Fe20). Field evidence of magma injections is common, which together with the restricted range in mineral chemistry suggests that the magma chamber was frequently replenished by a less fractionated magma. A detailed study of a 600 m section (900–1500 m) in the Lower Layered Series reveals a period of crystallization when the magma chamber behaved as a closed system (900–1300 m). The rocks formed during this periodare well-laminated olivine–gabbros (900–110 m), which evolved to well-laminated oxide-gabbros (1100–1300 m). Compositional trends in the cumulusminerals are towards more evolved compositions (plagioclase An64—An58, pyroxene Mg# from 80 to 76) with stratigraphic height. From 1300 m to 1500 m, granular olivine-gabbros dominate, with moreprimitive mineral compositions (plagioclase An67—An76, pyroxene Mg# from 78 to 82). The transition olivine–gabbro to oxide-gabbro at 1100m is a consequence of fractional crystallization, and it is shown how changes in activities of FeO and Fe203 in the magma are reflected in the total iron content of plagioclases.The transition from oxide-gabbro to olivine-gabbro at 1300 m results from replenishment by less evolved basaltic magma. On the basis of calcic pyroxene chemistry and the mineral crystallization sequence it is concluded that the Kap Edvard Holm Layered Series crystallized from a tholeiitic magma similar to MORB. Melanogabbroic units occur throughout the intrusion as discordant to subconcordant sill-like bodies 0.2–2.0 m thick. The melanogabbroic units consist of Cr-rich augite-olivine-plagioclase heteradcumulates and contain deformed mica crystals of pre-emplacement origin. These units crystallized from a wet, MgO-rich magma which was injected into the layered host gabbros after the formation of the cumulus pile, but before the magma was completely solidified.

The Kap Edvard Holm Layered Series has several parallels with the plutonic part of ophiolite sequences. These include: cumulus mineral assemblage, compositions of the minerals and the restricted range in compositions with stratigraphic height; field evidence of repeated replenishment of basaltic magma; dyke swarms overlying the roof zone of the magma chamber; and the existence of a late intrusive suite of wet, MgO-rich magma. These parallels suggest that the processes involved in the formation of the Kap Edvard Holm Layered Series were similar to those involved in the formation of the crustalpart of many ophiolites and beneath present-day spreading ridges. The Kap Edvard Holm Layered Series is therefore believed to represent a shallow-level magma chamber which acted as a reservoir for basaltic flows at the continental margin during the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean.

The Janusfjellet Subgroup on Svalbard consists on a 400 to 500 m thick sequence representing shallow marine depositional environments. Coarsening-upward units, often separated by carbonate beds, are commonly found in rhythmic developments. Rhythmicities (285000(?) and 850000(?) years) in the sedimentary sections show periods which may reflect pulses in nearby sea-floor spreading or strike-slip fault regimes. An astronomical control of the cycles cannot be excluded, although such changes most probably should be expected in superimposed episodes of shorter duration.

The Struma (Kraištid) Lineament is a part of a fault belt of regional importance. It strikes NNW-SSE and cuts through different Alpine tectonic zones along the whole Balkan Peninsula. Normal and strike-slip faults occurred in environments of extension and graben formation during collapse after or between collision epochs in the Palaeogene and Early Neogene, and in a back-arc extensional environment during the neotectonic (end of Middle Miocene-Quaternary) stage. The last Alpine compression phase occurred in the beginning of the Miocene, and Early-Middle Miocene planation formed the initial peneplain. New intense faulting marked the beginning of the neotectonic stage (Late Badenian), and the neotectonic development, including sedimentation, proceeded in four regional macrocycles: Badenian-Sarmatian; Maeotian; Pontian-Dacian; and Eopleistocene-Pleistocene. The neotectonic development was marked by formation of the Serbo-Macedonian Swell as well as by rifting (the Vardar and Struma rifts).

Olivine-bearing lamproite magmas intruded into Permian coal seams in northeast India occur as root-like cylinder stockworks, extending for up to several kilometres up-dip along the bedding planes of their sedimentary host. Clusters of eight or more conduits are typical, linked by thin tubular cross-branches. Cylindrical geometry may arise by injection of hot, low-viscosity fluid through a slot, with the development of multiple tube-like instabilities at the interface between the moving fluid and a higher-viscosity host. This behaviour appears more complex than the models of Chouke, van Meurs & van der Pod, and Saffman & Taylor, which predict the development of a single dominant tube in porous or layered flow. Cylinder emplacement may be an essentially passive process, in which the sediment column is reduced by expulsion of heated pore fluids at the head of the moving intrusion, creating a space into which the melt can propagate. Generation of a superheated vapour envelope by non-nucleated film boiling of these fluids around the hot lamproite magma (the Leidenfrost effect) allows melt flow to be maintained in a lengthening tube thermally insulated from the surrounding coal, in a manner analogous to submarine lava tubes. Cooling of the magma through the Nukiyama temperature (the temperature at which maximum evaporation of the heated fluid occurs) may give rise to violent surface boiling and the formation of large vapour bubbles at the magma–coal interface. Implosion of these bubbles could then result in the formation of shock breccias, comparable to hyaloclastites produced by bubble or surface film collapse in the vicinity of pillow lava tubes. The operation of such a process around lamproite magma is suggested by the presence of complex breccias composed of highly fragmented coal, sandstone, and lamproite, at the termini of certain cylinders.

Surface and subsurface exposures of the cylinders reveal the presence of a carbonate–chlorite–clay halo surrounding each intrusion, resulting from the alteration of mafic mineral phases by fugitive volatiles released from the protective vapour jacket. The coal seams proximal to intrusion clusters are relatively undeformed, with no evidence of assimilation by the invading melts. The coals have experienced extensive carbonization, probably as a result of slow conductive heating from the cooling lamproite bodies, or fluids derived therefrom. Field observations indicate that these thermal effects are not merely confined to the coal–melt interface, but occur for some considerable distance away from the intrusions, producing large areas of naturally coked coal.

The Habberley Formation overlies the Shineton Shale Formation in the Shelve Inlier, Shropshire, and includes the youngest Tremadoc strata known from the Welsh Basin. It probably represents deposition during the interval cut out by the sub-Arenig unconformity in North Wales, and removed by the sub-Caradoc unconformity in the Wrekin district. There is no angular unconformity between Tremadoc and Arenig in the Shelve Inlier. The Habberley Formation is likely to correlate in part with the Hunnebergian Stage of Scandinavia. It was deposited probably in a largely stagnant basin, and records a shallowing-upwards sequence, prior to the Arenig transgression of the Stiperstones Quartzite. A sparse trilobite fauna proves the presence of the Angelina sedg vickii Biozone, and a succeeding interval is characterized by Asaphellus cf. graffi. The trilobites are briefly described; they include the first undistorted material of Angelina sedgwvickii. The brachiopod Lingulella bella (Walcott), hitherto known only from eastern Newfoundland, is described by A. W. A. Rushton.

Two suites of Permian dykes in the Orkney Islands consist of a predominantly ENE trending camptonite suite and a mainly N-to NE-trending suite formerly referred to as monchiquitic. Some of the silica-poor and more magnesium dykes in the latter suite can be more precisely defined as olivine melanephelinites. Within the parochial context of the British Isles, such compositions appear to be unique. The magmas are deduced to have been primitive, small-scale (? < 0.2%) partial melt products of the asthenospheric mantle that have experienced relatively little modification in transit through the lithosphere.

Silurian successions deposited on the margins of the Iapetus Ocean in the English Lake District, Southern Uplands of Scotland and Ireland contain recycled Ordovician acritarchs. These include taxa known only from Avalonia and Gondwana, with other recycled acritarchs possibly derived from Baltica. There is no palynological evidence to indicate that Laurentiaconstituted a source area. The data presented herein suggest that provinciality in derived microfossils may be profitably exploited in provenance studies.

Mesozoic deep-water sediments occurring on the island of Fuerteventura were deposited near the continent–ocean boundary adjacent to the African margin. During Tertiary times, they were uplifted and intruded by ultramafic, mafic and alkaline plutons and dykes and are now exposed as part of the ‘Basal Complex’ of the island. These sediments reflect more or less continuous hemipelagic and turbiditic deposition during most of Jurassic and Cretaceous times. Two ammonites, described in this paper, document a Valanginian to Hauterivian age for part of the Lower Cretaceous siliciclastic turbidites, and a latest Albian to early Cenomanian age for part of the Upper Cretaceous hemipelagic limestones.

The mid-Oligocene sediments forming the Beacon Cottage Farm Outlier at St Agnes, Cornwall, have a stratigraphical and geomorphological importance which is out of all proportion to their modest residual bulk (some 300000 m3). During 1986–8 61 holes were sunk into the area surrounding Beacon Cottage Farm; many penetrated the Palaeozoic floor beneath the outlier. Collectively, these show that the outlier mostly covers rotten granite and Killas. The sub-Oligocene unconformity is uneven and varies in altitude by at least 20 m. The local Bovey Formation succession comprises two members: Basal Sand, which is often pebbly, and sandy silts, known commercially as Candle Clay, the whole totalling a maximum of 8.9 m. There is indirect evidence either that slopes on the rotted Palaeozoic floor locally exceed 45° or that several post-mid-Oligocene faults affect the outlier. We conclude that the Beacon Cottage Farm sediments probably represent aeolian, colluvially and fluvially redistributed rotten rock residues, formed locally during a break in the long period of late-Palaeogene subtropical weathering and pediplanation. The outlier is considered in relation to the geomorphological evolution of the Cornubian Massif.

A preliminary geochemical investigation of Silurian (Llandovery) basinal mudstones (turbidites and hemipelagites) from the Southern Welsh Basin is described. Turbidite mudstones show higher concentrations of Fe2O3, MgO, TiO2, MnO, LOI, Zn and Zr than laminated hemipelagites. This is consistent with the observed higher concentrations of chlorite and Ti-bearing minerals in turbidite mudstones. Laminated hemipelagites show higher values of REEs (Ce and La), concentrated within authigenic monazites, and Ni, As, Cu and Pb within sulphide minerals (pyrite and galena) reflecting the influence of primary organic carbon levels and anoxic bottom waters on early diagenesis. Deposition of hemipelagites under oxidizing conditions is reflected in lower concentrations of authigenic sulphide mineral hosted elements compared with laminated hemipelagic lithologies. There is a distinct geochemical difference between mudstones of easterly and southerly provenance in the Southern Welsh Basin. This is shown for both turbidites and hemipelagites. The differences are due to the increased input of illite and the chemical elements associated with this mineral (K2O, A12O3, Rb and Ba). Turbidite mudstones sourced from the south show increased levels of heavy minerals, especially those associated with Ti-rich minerals. There is also an increase in elements associated with detrital monazites: Th and Y. The hemipelagites show higher values of REE and chalcophile elements consistent with their more reduced nature.

Proterozoic limestones at several localities in southwestern Spitsbergen contain karst-related features (layered clastic infillings, collapse breccias, deeply weathered depressions) which overprint the Caledonian deformational fabric in the rocks. These features apparently developedbetween middle Devonian and mid-Carboniferous time when the Precambrian basement complex stood high above sea level. Recognition of these karst features may shed light on depositional and tectonic events in post-Caledonian Spitsbergen.