The Orlock Bridge Fault separates the Ordovician and Silurian turbidite sequences within the Southern Uplands thrust belt. A large biostratigraphical break and the 1 km wide sinistral Slieve Glah Shear Zone associated with the fault in northern Ireland led to previous interpretation as a major regional structure, possibly a terrane boundary. In Scotland, however, the stratigraphical break is much less and an association with inliers of the Moffat Shale Group suggests that the fault is essentially similar to the other tract-bounding faults which originated as syn-D1 thrusts within the imbricate stack. Localized sinistral deformation apparent along the trace of the Orlock Bridge Fault in southwestern Scotland, associated with post-1 reactivation, is comparable to that seen at Slieve Glah. Further east, a broad zone (up to 8 km) of sinistral ductile deformation, the Moniaive Shear Zone, is recognized adjacent to the Orlock Bridge Fault over a strike length of about 100 km. However, this zone differs from the Slieve Glah Shear Zone in its width and its location relative to the fault, suggesting that it is not simply related to the fault but represents a more regional deformation. Sinistral reactivation of the Orlock Bridge Fault was possibly initiated in the Wenlock during the peak of sinistral shear at the thrust front, although it may have developed over a long time contemporaneously with, but locally post-dating, the Moniaive Shear Zone. The latter deforms porphyroblasts with the thermal aureole of the c. 392 Ma Cairnsmore of Fleet granite pluton, which was emplaced into and largely post-dates the shear zone, but is deformed by the Orlock Bridge Fault. Major dip-slip reactivation of the fault post-dates the Moniaive Shear Zone and regional metamorphism and probably occurred in the Carboniferous or Permian. There is some evidence for a deep crustal feature coincident with the Orlock Bridge Fault, possibly the boundary between different crustal blocks in the collage of terrane fragments accreted during the final closure of Iapetus, which may explain the unusual extent of the reactivation of the Orlock Bridge Fault within the allochthonous Southern Uplands thrust stack. However, the situation of the fault within the Southern Uplands terrane and, in Scotland, the biostratigraphical evidence of no major stratigraphical break across the fault and the lack of any clear relationship between the Orlock Bridge Fault and the Moniaive Shear Zone indicate that the fault should not be regarded as a terrane boundary.

Magnetotelluric data from 16 soundings have provided a northwest-southeast traverse across the Northern and Central belts of the Southern Uplands. The 34 km profile extends from the Ordovician Portpatrick Formation (northwest of the Thornhill Basin) across the Silurian Gala Group onto the Permian Lochmaben Basin in the southeast. The survey traverses, and has particular relevance to, the Ordovician/Silurian boundary (Orlock Bridge Fault), the associated Moniaive Shear Zone, and the Moffat Valley Lineament. The data obtained have been successfully modelled (inverted) to provide a crustal-scale resistivity cross-section. The two Upper Palaeozoic basins are resolved as relatively conducting features. Basin depths are about 200 m (Thornhill) and 1100 m (Lochmaben). Elsewhere, through the upper crustal interval, resistivities over 500 ohm m are associated with the Lower Palaeozoic greywackes. The Silurian formations appear more resistive (and slightly thicker) than their Ordovician counterparts. Depth to basement (base Lower Palaeozoic) is not a well-resolved characteristic but resistivity gradients observed below 5 km suggest a depth of this order. Concealed beneath the Thornhill Basin lie two narrow, vertical, conductive zones. The more substantial feature lies towards the northwest margin of the basin, and is probably associated with the Orlock Bridge Fault. The second zone lies towards the southeast margin of the basin. The conductivity minima, in both cases, are located in the depth range 2 to 3 km; they are separate and distinct from the overlying basin sediments. If the two anomalies, some 5 to 6 km apart, can be considered an expression of the Moniaive Shear Zone, then the major conductive constituents are concentrated at the margins. Two dipping, resistive features in the upper kilometre are imaged in the vicinity of the Moffat Valley Lineament.

Plant megafossils resembling Cooksonia caledonica Lang aredescribed from the Kirusillas Formation in southern Bolivia.Faunal and lithological evidence together with field relation-ships advocate a late Silurian (Ludlow) age. Palaeocontinentalreconstructions suggest that the plants grew on the western edgeof Gondwana at 50–60° S and indicate that Cooksonia hadspread to higher latitudes soon after its appearance in the Wenlock.

The distal part of the fused ischia of a prosauropod from the Nam Phong Formation (late Triassic) of Phetchabun Province, in northeastern Thailand, is described. Comparisons with various prosauropods, as well as with an early sauropod, show that the Thai specimen is especially robust. However, the available material is too incomplete to warrant a precise identification. It is the first vertebrate fossil found in the Nam Phong Formation, the oldest known dinosaur from southeast Asia, and the first prosauropod to be reported from that region.

Structural mapping of the North West Mayo Inlier has investigated the kinematics of ductile fault and shear zones within the Dalradian and pre-Dalradian rocks. The area is characterized by an intense east to southeast trending elongation direction. Pre-Caledonian deformation is preserved as west-northwest trending sinistral mylonite zones. These are cross-cut by Grenville pegmatites and by undated mafic dykes. Subsequent deformation has been influenced by the majorbasement structures. During the Caledonian deformation, the pre-existing sinistral structures were reactivated coaxially as steep sinistral shear zones, deforming the mafic dykes. Major northwesterly verging thrusts are widespread in flat-lying zones which occur over much of the inlier. These are interpreted as D2 in age. The S2 fabric is the dominant fabric and contains an east to northeast trending mineral lineation. The southeastern part of the inlier is characterized by very large scale (wavelengths of kilometres) reclined D2 folding. This is interpreted as a crustal scale ramp zone. In the vicinity of this ramp there is evidence of earlier (F1) folds which are possibly the product of ramprelated deformation. All of these structures are interpreted as the product of northwest verging thrusting with crustal scale frontal and lateral ramps.

Detrital clinopyroxenes occur abundantly in several greywacke formations in the Southern Uplands, both as single grains and within andesite lithoclasts. Compositionally, these pyroxenes fall into two main groups. Those from the oldest unit, the early Caradoc Galdenoch Formation, were derived from a simple tholeiitic volcanic arc. In contrast, the pyroxenes in the younger Portpatrick (late Caradoc) and Glenlee (Ashgill) Formations and the Gala Group (early Llandovery), show initial strongly calc-alkaline affinities, followed by a more complex calc-alkaline to transitional (calc-alkaline to tholeiitic) volcanic arc signature. The latter may be due to a mixture of calc-alkaline and tholeiitic components. A presently exposed source for the andesites has not yet been established, although the Ballantrae Complex is a potential candidate for a tholeiitic component.

Recently published radiometric data show the duration of the Silurian Period to be approximately 32 Ma, significantly longer than previous estimates. Radiometric and graphic correlation studies demonstrate considerable variation in the durations of the four Silurian epochs: approximately 13 Ma for the Llandovery, 4 Ma for the Wenlock, 5 Ma for the Ludlow and 10 Ma for the Přídolí. Using this new geochronological data, figures for average graptolite zone duration are presented for each epoch, ranging from as little as 0.44 Ma in the Wenlock, to 1.43 Ma in the Přídolí. The figures provide a refined subdivision of the Silurian timescale, of value to studies which use Silurian graptolite zones to calibrate geological processes.

Phosphatized soft tissues are preserved in abundance in the trigoniids (Bivalvia) Laevitrigonia gibbosa and Myophorella incurva from the Portland Roach (Upper Jurassic) of Dorset. Cellular structures are preserved and fossilization is almost exclusively the result of a dense coating of mineralized microbes. Phosphatized soft tissues are restricted entirely to those trigoniids whose valves remained tightly closed after death. Only in these specimens was sufficient phosphorus concentrated by the decay of their most ‘labile’ soft tissues to trigger the precipitation of apatite in and around microbes infesting their more ‘refractory’ soft tissues. The absence of fossilized soft tissues in the rest of the fauna implies that phosphatization was very taxon-specific.

In the northern part of the Southern Uplands, restricted volumes of basic igneous rocks occur at or near the base of the Ordovician sedimentary strata. These rocks have previously been interpreted as ocean-floor tholeiites representative of the subducted Iapetus oceanic plate, preserved as tectonic slivers in a fore-arc accretionary prism. The alternative, back-arc basin model proposed for the Southern Uplands on sedimentological evidence raises questions over the origin of these rocks. New geochemical data and previously published data clearly indicate that the volcanic material does not have a simple single source. The oldest (Arenig) volcanic rocks from the Moffat Shale Group associated with the Leadhills Fault include alkaline within-plate basalts and tholeiitic lavas which possibly display geochemical characteristics of midocean ridge basalts. In the northernmost occurrence, alkaline and tholeiitic basalts contained within the Caradoc Marchburn Formation are both of within-plate ocean island affinity. To the south, in the Gabsnout Burn area, the Moffat Shale Group contains lenticular bodies of dolerite and basalt which have characteristics of island-arc to transitional basalts. This complex association of basaltic volcanic rocks is, at the present time, difficult to reconcile with either a simple fore-arc or back-arc setting for the Southern Uplands. However, the increasing arc-related chemical influence on basic rock geochemistry towards the southeast may tentatively be used in support of a southern arc-terrane, and as a result, a back-arc situation for the Southern Uplands basin. An alternative is that these volcanic rocks may represent the local basement to the basin and include remnants of an arc precursor to the Southern Uplands basin.