The distinct alignment of the Steinheim Basin and the Nördlinger Ries impact structures in SW Germany and the Central European tektite strewn field suggest ENE-directed trajectories of the Ries and Steinheim impacting bodies. From impact experiments, the asymmetry of the Steinheim crater and the arrangement of structural features therein are in good agreement with features produced during an oblique impact at 30° from the horizontal. The restriction of shatter cones to the eastern segment of the Steinheim Basin crater also suggests a west–east-directed trend of the impact direction, and supports previous models that favoured such impactor trajectory.

The study was performed in central-northern Anatolia (from Ankara to Amasya) to investigate the relationships of the Sakarya Zone units and the Izmir–Ankara–Erzincan suture (IAES) melange. It reveals that all the Sakarya Zone units are metamorphic and three main tectonostratigraphic units have been distinguished for the first time: the BAA (metasiliciclastic rocks capped by metacarbonates and varicoloured phyllite), the BKC (poly-metamorphic garnet-bearing micaschist and metabasite with a well-preserved relict HP–LT amphibole in a low-amphibolitic to greenschist-facies framework) and the AMC (meta-arkose passing vertically to carbonate–phyllitic alternations and, then, to a thick succession of prevailing acidic to intermediate–basic metavolcanites and volcanic-rich metasediments). The BAA and AMC, whose metamorphic frameworks are of Cimmerian age, underlie the Mesozoic carbonate cover sequences (e.g. t2-3, j3–k1) that often show tectonic detachments and slicing. The piling up of the BAA above the HP–LT BKC can be correlated to the tectonic superposition of two similar units (i.e. the Cimmerian Çangaldağ Complex and the Alpine Middle–Upper Cretaceous Domuzdağ Complex, respectively) defined by previous authors in other sectors of the Central Pontides front. The ophiolitic melange generally underlies the Sakarya Zone, but locally (e.g. SE of Amasya) tectonically rests above the latter, probably owing to back-thrusting that occurred during the Tertiary syn-collisional shortenings and the later strike-slip tectonics. We hypothesize that, also in these areas, the Sakarya Zone–IAES consists of a complex tectonic stack of different units, belonging to different palaeogeographic domains and orogenic events (Cimmerian versus Alpine orogenies), but originated within a single long-lived (since Late Triassic to Paleocene/Eocene times), prograding subduction–accretion system in front of the Laurasian continent.

The diet and habitat of Leptomeryx sp. from the Late Uintan Yolomécatl Formation of NW Oaxaca, SE Mexico were inferred using dental enamel carbon and oxygen isotopic relationships, and compared with those of congeneric species from temperate North America. Results show that Leptomeryx sp. fed on C3 plants and lived in open forest or forest/savanna ecotone. The palynoflora and co-occurrence of perissodactyls and artiodactyls that live in an environment like that of Leptomeryx support this interpretation. Further, both records disclose that in NW Oaxaca (southern North America) tropical conditions prevailed at that time, unlike that of temperate North America.

We here propose a new kinematic picture of central Sicily based on the results of detailed field mapping of the region, combined with structural analyses and the interpretation of the available literature subsurface data. Our study focused on the tectonic boundary of a structural depression, the Caltanissetta Trough, which is now filled with allochthonous terrains resting on the deep-seated inverted African palaeomargin units. Our data refer to the tectonosedimentary evolution of the thrust-top basins, from Late Tortonian to Quaternary times. The study points out the occurrence of regional E–W-oriented dextral shear zones, cutting the NE-oriented trends of the thrust belt. This new evidence would confirm the major role of the E–W trend in the tectonic inversion of the external portions of the Africa palaeomargin in Sicily. Our results could contribute to a better understanding of the location in Sicily of the tectonic lineaments accommodating the hundreds of kilometres of lateral displacement, caused by the Late Miocene–Quaternary Tyrrhenian Basin opening to the north of the island.

U–Th–Pbtotal age determinations in monazite in a noritic anorthosite at the margin of the Koraput anorthosite pluton constrain the time of emplacement and sub-solidus chemical modifications in the Grenvillian-age anorthosite pluton in the Eastern Ghats Province (EGP), India. The monazites hosted within dynamically recrystallized orthopyroxene and plagioclase grains are large (50–500 μm in diameter) and complexly zoned. Based on the textural–chemical heterogeneities, these monazites are classified into three groups. Group-I monazites exhibit a low-ThO2 core mantled by a high-ThO2 rim. By contrast, the group-II monazites exhibit high-ThO2 cores laced by ThO2-poor mantles, and outermost rims with still lower ThO2 contents. Skeletal group-III monazites at polygonized grain/phase boundaries exhibit patchy and concentric zones with decreasing ThO2 towards the margin. The U–Th–Pbtotal chemical ages obtained using electron probe microanalyses exhibit four age clusters. The oldest age population (mean 939 ± 4.5 Ma) obtained in cores in group-I, II and III monazites with patchy zones corresponds with the emplacement of the Koraput anorthosite, and this age population is consistent with 980–930 Ma emplacement ages reported in other EGP anorthosite massifs. Younger monazites mantling the cores in group-II monazites and in group-III monazites with mean ages of 877 ± 5 Ma and 749 ± 18 Ma possibly reflect episodic monazite growth by fluid-aided dissolution–precipitation culminating with the disintegration of Rodinia at ~750 Ma. The youngest age population (mean 574 ± 19 Ma) in the outermost monazite rims and monazite veins represents renewed monazite growth during the Pan African assembly of the Grenvillian-age EGP domain with the proto-Indian cratons.