1. The raised beach near Porth Clais consists of shingle and large wave-worn boulders resting on a rock-platform, and overlain by angular head or rubble of local rocks.

2. Glacial drift (Boulder-clay) overlies the head at the western end of the section, and towards the east has ploughed into the raised beach and rests on the solid rock. Some of the boulders of the raised beach and a small piece of the rock-platform are definitely striated under the Glacial drift.

3. The raised beach is pre-Glacial in the sense that it underlies the Glacial deposit.

4. The raised beach contains non-local boulders which may have been transported by drifting shore-ice.

Methods of impregnating clays with the cement Lakeside 70C and two resins of the Araldite range are described and some details of the techniques of mounting and grinding specimens are included.

The 18 curve from the 1390 m long ice core from Camp Century, Greenland, shows climatic changes that are easily correlated with known glacial and non-glacial events of North America and north Europe and are thus indirectly dated. With a known chronology, the glacial dynamic changes of the Greenland Ice Sheet can be calculated for the last 125,000 years. It is concluded that the dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet have changed drastically during this period and that these changes are directly related to major changes of climate and extension of the Wisconsin and Weichselian glaciations. Logarithmic time scales earlier applied to this curve must therefore be incorrect.

The 10 to 20 m resolution of SPOT image data, together with their potential for stereoscopic viewing, provides an excellent base for geological mapping inremote and rugged terrain that is akin to high-level aerial photographs. Their large format (60 × 60 km) also gives the advantage of synoptic coverage that ranks with images from the Landsat series of satellites. Use of stereo pairs of single-band SPOT images has enabled some revision of existing geological maps of the southern Aravalli Hills in Rajasthan at a scale of 1:100000, and has added significantly to knowledge of their complex mid-Proterozoic structure. In particular, many possibly early low-angled faults have been discovered, together with the tectonic nature of a major terrain boundary and much detail of intricate structures has been added in the more remote areas. The potentialfor lithological discrimination of multispectral SPOT data is severely limited by its restricted coverage of geologically important spectral features, and it is far surpassed by that of Landsat Thematic Mapper data, which would have been capable of more comprehensive lithofacies reconnaissance, had they been available.

A gastropod fauna has been studied from upper Pliensbachian – upper Toarcian deposits of two sections of the Causses Basin (southern France) in order to investigate the mode of recovery after the early Toarcian anoxic event. The fauna consists of 15 species, one of which is new (Bathrotomaria kronzwilmesorum sp. nov.). Their stratigraphical distribution shows two peaks of diversity – in the Bifrons Zone (Bifrons Subzone) and in the Aalensis Zone (Mactra Subzone) – which reflect brief times during which the oxygen content and bottom consistency favoured the settlement of a relatively diversified fauna. In the Variabilis–Pseudoradiosa zones, gastropods are only represented by two species. This probably indicates more severe and unstable environmental conditions, only allowing the survival of gastropod taxa with wide adaptive capacities. The very low species diversity and the discontinuous and slow faunal recovery were probably determined by physiographic factors. The Causses area was a small basin confined by exposed lands and open towards the central part of western Tethys. Gastropods described here occur exclusively in the Toarcian – early Aalenian communities of the European epicontinental seas, whereas species from the central region of western Tethys are absent. Geographic isolation and marginal location of the Causses Basin restricted faunal exchange with the western European epicontinental seas, preventing fast recovery after the anoxic event. Gastropods of the central region of the western Tethys were probably unable to settle and colonize that area due to the strongly different environment.

The Loch Awe Syncline (Bailey, 1913), affecting the Middle and Upper Iltay Dalradian Successions of Argyllshire, is recognised as an F1 structure. The present work shows that the west limb is arched over a pre-O.R.S., late Caledonian monoform responsible for the fan of first cleavage over the area investigated. Reflecting the style of the earlier Ben Lui-Tarbert Monoform (Roberts & Treagus, 1964), the newly described Kilmelford–Turnalt Monoform adds to the symmetry of the Iltay Nappe Complex. “Mushroom” Structure (Rast, 1963).

The Cambrian–Ordovician metasedimentary rocks of the Meguma terrane (Canadian Appalachians) were extensively intruded by silicic plutons during Middle Devonian to Early Carboniferous times. Syn-plutonic but volumetrically minor mafic-ultramafic intrusions were also emplaced. In most localities, the silicic plutons and mafic-ultramafic intrusions do not appear to be petrogenetically related and are likely derived from different sources. The Attwoods Brook gabbronorite of SW Nova Scotia yielded an in situ zircon weighted-mean 206Pb–238U age of 357.9 ± 3.3 Ma that is within the uncertainty of the age of the neighbouring Wedgeport pluton (357 ± 1 Ma). The Wedgeport pluton is a rare example of a mantle-derived, peraluminous A-type granite within the Meguma terrane. The similar ages and Nd isotopes of the Attwoods Brook gabbronorite (εNd(t) = +1.1 to +4.0) and Wedgeport pluton (εNd(t) = +2.1 to +3.3) suggest the two intrusions are petrogenetically related. Fractional crystallization modelling demonstrates that a parental magma similar to the Attwoods Brook gabbronorite can produce residual silicic liquids that resemble the granites of the Wedgeport pluton, indicating that they could be members of the same intrusive complex. The emplacement of the gabbronorite and Wedgeport pluton occurred during a period of tensional plate stress that was contemporaneous with rifting of the Maritimes Basin that produced the Fountain Lake continental flood basalts and A-type granites of the Cobequid Highlands within the Avalon terrane. It is possible that the Early Carboniferous rocks of SW Nova Scotia are related to the rifted-related magmatism within the Maritimes Basin.

Evidence of Late Triassic large tetrapods from the UK is rare. Here, we describe a track-bearing surface located on the shoreline near Penarth, south Wales, United Kingdom. The total exposed surface is c. 50 m long and c. 2 m wide, and is split into northern and southern sections by a small fault. We interpret these impressions as tracks, rather than abiogenic sedimentary structures, because of the possession of marked displacement rims and their relationship to each other with regularly spaced impressions forming putative trackways. The impressions are large (up to c. 50 cm in length), but poorly preserved, and retain little information about track-maker anatomy. We discuss alternative, plausible, abiotic mechanisms that might have been responsible for the formation of these features, but reject them in favour of these impressions being tetrapod tracks. We propose that the site is an additional occurrence of the ichnotaxon Eosauropus, representing a sauropodomorph trackmaker, thereby adding a useful new datum to their sparse Late Triassic record in the UK. We also used historical photogrammetry to digitally map the extent of site erosion during 2009–2020. More than 1 m of the surface exposure has been lost over this 11-year period, and the few tracks present in both models show significant smoothing, breakage and loss of detail. These tracks are an important datapoint for Late Triassic palaeontology in the UK, even if they cannot be confidently assigned to a specific trackmaker. The documented loss of the bedding surface highlights the transient and vulnerable nature of our fossil resources, particularly in coastal settings, and the need to gather data as quickly and effectively as possible.

The Almazán Basin (northern Spain) is a Tertiary basin, 90×45 km wide, located in the western part of the Iberian Chain. It is filled with folded Palaeogene (2500–3000 m thick) and horizontal Neogene (500 m) beds. From the study of a satellite image, more than 2300 lineaments have been identified in the Neogene horizontal rocks. Their absolute orientation maximum is 060–070, and relative maxima are 100–110 and 120–140. Some spatial variations in the regional trends can be observed: (1) Throughout the central part of the basin, the east–northeast trending lines are the most representative. (2) Near the eastern border of the Basin the northwest–southeast set (parallel to the trend of thrust and folds in the older rocks) is dominant. (3) In the northwestern part of the basin the northwest–southeast and WNW–ESE sets coexist with the main east–northeast set. The maximum density of lineaments is found along a WNW–ESE line that corresponds with the axis of maximum thickness for the Tertiary units. A detailed field study of fracturing at the outcrop scale (more than 2300 fractures measured) was carried out. The orientation distribution of lineaments coincides with the orientation of left-lateral faults at the outcrop scale, and differences are greater when considering all kinds of fractures in different sectors. The origin of fracturing at different scales in the Almazán Basin can be related to the Neogene stress field and the influence of previous structures: (1) The northwest–southeast set of fractures formed as a result of reactivation of older faults, inherited from the late Variscan fracturing. (2) The main ENE–WSW set of fractures corresponds to neoformed left-lateral joints and faults under the northeast–southwest Neogene compression, the dextral conjugate set of joints within this system (NNE–SSW) being much less developed.

The Glen Tilt Complex, one of the larger masses of the Newer Granites of the Central Highlands, is included in sheet 64 of the Geological Survey of Scotland. The greater part of this complex is a granite which is bounded on the south-west and southeast by an earlier series of intermediate and basic rocks. The granites described in this contribution are restricted to a small area at the south-eastern margin of the large granitic intrusion generally known as the Beinn Dearc granite. The smaller and independent intrusion of the Sron a ‘Chro’ granite and a number of smaller masses of granite associated with the marginal strip of diorites on the north-western side of Glen Tilt have also been examined. These small isolated areas appear to be contemporaneous with the intrusion of the main Beinn Dearc mass and have been intruded between the earlier diorites and the margin of the intrusion, a feature not uncommon in many of the other Scottish Newer Granites. A small independent mass of muscovite-biotite-granite intruded into quartz-mica-diorite occurs on Conlach Mhor. Although these rocks are completely isolated from both the biotite- and muscovite-biotite-granites of the main Beinn Dearc intrusion their essential similarity with the latter leaves no reasonable doubt of their common origin.

Some years ago I published, with the late Professor T. Rupert Jones, F.R.S., a description of two small Limuloids referred to the genus Bellinurus, sent me by ray friend Dr. H. M. Ami (then of the Canadian Geological Survey), who obtained them from the Lower Carboniferous Marine Series on the Intercolonial Railway of Canada, in Colchester County, Nova Scotia (Geol. Mag., 1899,pp. 387–95, PI. XV, Figs. 2 and 3), under the specific name of B. B. grandævus. Fig. 2 was collected from the sixth cutting east of Riversdale Station and Fig. 3 from the third cutting east of Colnary River.

The Harsin–Sahneh serpentinized peridotites are widely exposed along the Zagros suture zone in the western region of Iran and are considered to represent remnants of Neo-Tethys oceanic lithosphere at the junction of the Arabian and Iran Plates. These rocks are characterized by low contents of SiO2 (38.8–43.5 wt%), Al2O3 (0.1–3.8 wt%), CaO (0.2–8.2 wt%) and TiO2 (< 1 wt%) and high MgO contents (31.1–46.0 wt%). Their enrichments of large ion lithophile elements and light rare earth elements, with high 87Sr/86Sr(i) values (0.7036–0.7109) and relatively high variations in their εNd(t) (–7.5 to +7.8) values, indicate that the Harsin–Sahneh peridotites were metasomatized by flux released from the oceanic subducting slab in an active margin. The chemical compositions and isotopic ratios of these rocks suggest that they were formed as residue of mid-oceanic ridge basalt in the lithosphere that was then subsequently re-melted and metasomatized in a supra-subduction zone system. The occurrence of both mid-oceanic ridge and supra-subduction zone-type peridotites suggests that the heterogeneity of the upper mantle may have occurred due to the different ratios of partial melting and melt–rock reaction processes in different tectonic settings within the Neo-Tethys realm. The Harsin–Sahneh peridotites provide a good explanation of multistage melt extraction as well as melt–rock and metasomatic reactions in the mantle sequence of the Zagros ophiolite complex.

A sequence of 11 tetracoral and conodont faunas, ranging from early Gedinnian to late Givetian, is recognized in the Lower and Middle Devonian limestones of New South Wales and Victoria. These faunas are not only important stratigraphically in eastern Australia, but also provide a basis for the correlation of the Australian Devonian with overseas stages. A table of correlation is given for the principal Devonian limestone sequences of New South Wales and Victoria.

Shirley and Horsfield (1940) in describing the Carboniferous Limestone of the Castleton-Bradwell area in North Derbyshire submitted evidence that the richly fossiliferous rocks of B2 age, the “Castleton reef knoll limestones lie with strong unconformity on the D1-D2 limestones, being piled against steep slopes or cliffs of Mid-Carboniferous age of at least 550 feet. The Nun Low limestones of P age follow with a similar relationship to the Castleton Limestones”.

Oolitic ironstones are described from the early Cretaceous non-marine Wealden sediments of southeast England. The recognition of non-marine oolitic ironstones in the geological record is rare and, therefore, warrants further study. The oolitic ironstones described take two forms, named here type-I and type-2 ironstones.

Type-1 ironstones contain pisoids and ooids of berthierine together with sandstone fragments and detrital quartz grains. The pisoids (up to 0.5 cm in size) vary from subspherical to highly irregular. The smaller ooids (up to 1 mm in size) are generally ellipsoidal but strongly asymmetrical forms are also present. The form of these pisoids and ooids suggest that mechanical accretion was not the dominant mechanism controlling their formation. It is proposed that this ironstone type formed from the reworking and redeposition of local soil material.

Type-2 ironstones, of which only one unequivocal example has been studied, is composed of iron oxide ooids set in a detrital matrix. The ooids are most commonly regularly ellipsoidal and exhibit a decrease in iron at their centres. It is proposed here that the ooids suffered post-depositional iron depletion at their centres, in a similar fashion to that proposed for the recent Lake Chad oolites. There is no unequivocal evidence as to the origin of the ooids.

This study is important in that it shows that different ironstones can be formed by different processes essentially within the same environment. Comparison of non-marine oolitic ironstones with the better-developed marine examples should prove a valuable exercise.

The nature and arrangement of the “gills” of Eurypterids is not known in detail. A specimen of Slimonia in the Sedgwick Museum (No. A16237a), figured by Laurie (1893, pl. 1, figs. 5, 6, p. 514), seems to show their structure and segmental arrangement better than any described elsewhere. Owing to the rather poor quality of Laurie's figure and to the important conclusions which follow a study of this specimen, it has been thought fit to re-describe it here.

The spatial arrangement of gypsum veins as preserved natural hydraulic fractures have been characterized in the Triassic Keuper Marl Formation (UK), a caprock for hydrocarbon reservoirs and CO2 sequestration. The marls cropping out are subdivided into five discrete fracture units based on the presence and abundance of gypsum veins. The nodular gypsum in evaporite horizons provides excess gypsum for nodule-rooted horizontal gypsum veins. Our petrographic observations demonstrate that the development of gypsum veins in beds lacking macroscopic evaporites is closely associated with disseminated gypsum cement in the marls. We interpret that the gypsum veins in marl are sourced from disseminated gypsum cements in the host rocks, based on stratigraphic correlations, and much lower Sr concentrations than gypsum nodules. Gypsum was transported to adjacent veins mainly through diffusion in the low-permeability marls. The localization of gypsum veins and varied Sr concentrations of veins and nodules indicate that the diagenetic fluids are a mix of connate water with meteoric water rather than brines transported from evaporite beds along faults to non-evaporite beds. This results in the absence of gypsum fillings in fractures in rocks without primary gypsum cements. The study implies that the cementation of natural fractures in low-permeability rocks can highly depend on the presence of cement minerals in the host rock.

Studies that reveal detailed information about trilobite growth, particularly early developmental stages, are crucial for improving our understanding of the phylogenetic relationships within this iconic group of fossil arthropods. Here we document an essentially complete ontogeny of the trilobite Redlichia cf. versabunda from the Cambrian Series 2 (late Stage 4) Ramsay Limestone of Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, including some of the best-preserved protaspides (the earliest biomineralized trilobite larval stage) known for any Cambrian trilobite. These protaspid stages exhibit similar morphological characteristics to many other taxa within the Suborder Redlichiina, especially to closely related species such as Metaredlichia cylindrica from the early Cambrian period of China. Morphological patterns observed across early developmental stages of different groups within the Order Redlichiida are discussed. Although redlichiine protaspides exhibit similar overall morphologies, certain ontogenetic characters within this suborder have potential phylogenetic signal, with different superfamilies characterized by unique trait combinations in these early growth stages.