The Outer Hebrides, lying off the north-west coast of Scotland, are of particular interest to the student of Pleistocene geology, on account of the grand scale on which the results of ice-action are to be seen, and because of the marine shell-beds which are to be found at the northern end of the Isle of Lewis. In the present paper no general survey ofthe glacial deposits of the Outer Hebrides will be attempted; my object is rather to drawattention to certain features of the marine fossils, as a study of the coast sections shows that a faunal sequence can be established in the Pleistocene series.

The oldest rocks in the Penbegˇli-Tut inlier of southeastern Turkey belong to the Meryemuşagˇi Formation (base not seen); they are mostly clastic rocks of ?late Precambrian age, overlain with angular unconformity by unfossiliferous quartzites (270 m est.) of the Zabuk Formation. The latter unit is succeeded conformably by the Koruk Formation (Lower?/Middle Cambrian), comprising almost 200 m of dolomite and grey and red nodular limestone, and the Sosink Formation (Middle Cambrian), about 600 m of silty mudstone and sandstone with a few thin limestone beds, overlain unconformably by Cretaceous carbonates. The closest comparison is with the Derik-Mardin area, 220 km to the east, where the section is more complete. The upper Koruk Formation contains trilobites of the Pardailhania and Solenopleuropsis biozones; trilobites from the Sosink Formation indicate the Solenopleuropsis Biozone, a post-Solenopleuropsis interval, and a level with Holasaphus mesopotamicus, known only from the Derik area. Acritarchs from the highest Koruk Formation and the whole of the Sosink belong to the lower part of microflora A2, described from the Middle Cambrian of eastern Newfoundland.

The Palaeogene Slieve Gullion Igneous Centre in southern Armagh, Northern Ireland, consists of a layered central intrusive complex surrounded by a prominent and slightly older ring-dyke that intrudes both Lower Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks and the Caledonian Newry Granodiorite pluton (452 Ma). The ring-dyke comprises two major rock types: porphyritic felsite and porphyritic granophyre. We analysed both ring-dyke lithologies, both types of country rock, and a local Palaeogene basalt dyke sample for Sr and Nd isotopes. Trace element and whole rock data for this suite suggest that there are two distinct groups of both felsite and granophyre: one Si-rich and one Si-poor, most likely representing two magmas from a zoned chamber and their mushy chamber wall equivalents (McDonnell et al. 2004). Isotope data show the low-Si rocks to be higher in radiogenic Sr than the high-Si rocks, which is inconsistent with a simple AFC-scenario of increasing sediment assimilation with higher degrees of differentiation. However, using MORB-type basalt as a starting composition, the low-Si ring-dyke rocks can be modelled through AFC with Lower Palaeozoic sedimentary rock as the contaminant. The decreasing 87Sr/86Sr trend from low-Si to high-Si dyke rocks, in turn, represents a second stage of contamination. Selective assimilation of the most fusible portions of Newry Granodiorite, which is lower in radiogenic Sr than the local sedimentary rocks, appears to be the most plausible solution. The Sr and Nd data are consistent with (a) at least a two-stage contamination history during upper crustal residence and storage, whereby fractionating magmas of basaltic and intermediate composition are contaminated by local sedimentary rocks, giving rise to rhyolite magmas that experience additional shallow contamination by Newry Granodiorite, and (b) a zoned rhyolite magma chamber where high-Si magma is stored in the upper part of the chamber where crystallization and crustal contamination are most extensive.

The suggestions made by previous writers are summarized, and Andersson's Solifluction Theory is discussed in detail. Reasons are given why the author believes that solifluction alone could not provide the explanation. Stone runs are shown to be largely an accident of past climate and the structure and lithology of the Upper Quartzite Series rocks. A note on the economic aspect of stone runs is added.

A Considerable amount of difficulty has been felt by geologists in accounting for the origin of the Boulder-clay of Caithness. It is an unstratified clay, of a deep grey or slaty colour, resembling much that of the Caithness flags on which it rests.

A volcanic tuff 1.0 m above the base of the Triebenreuth Formation in the Franconian Forest provides the first precise and biostratigraphically bracketed date within the traditional Middle Cambrian. The first illustration of fossils from the Triebenreuth Formation in this report and their discussion allow a more highly refined correlation within the Middle Cambrian. A weighted mean 206Pb–238U date of 503.14±0.13/0.25/0.59 Ma on zircons from this subaerial pyroclastic tuff was determined by U–Pb chemical abrasion isotope dilution mass spectrometry (CA-TIMS) techniques. At c. 6.0–7.0 Ma younger than the base of the traditional Middle Cambrian in Avalonia, the new West Gondwanan date from east-central Germany suggests that estimates of 500 Ma for the base of the traditional Upper Cambrian and 497 Ma on the base of the Furongian Series may prove to be too ‘old’. Biostratigraphically well-bracketed dates through most of the Middle Cambrian/Series 3 and below the upper Upper Cambrian/upper Furongian Series do not exist. An earlier determined 494.4±3.8 Ma date from the Southwell Group of Tasmania may actually prove to be a reasonable estimate for the age of the base of the traditional Upper Cambrian. Until high precision dates are determined on the base of the traditional Upper Cambrian and base of the Furongian Series, the rates of biotic replacements and geological developments and the durations of biotic zones in the Middle/Series 3 and Upper Cambrian/Furongian Series remain as ‘best guesses’.

In this paper we examine the role of multiple emplacement of sills into partly solidified rocks (an intrusive mechanism ‘liquid into solid’) as a possible explanation for some textural and compositional ‘anomalies’ of single-cyclic mafic intrusions. As a case study we used the Shiant Isles Main Sill that is widely regarded as a classical example of a multiple, picrite–picrodolerite–crinanite alkaline sill. This sill is currently interpreted as having been formed by several olivine phenocryst-rich pulses of magma, which were successively emplaced into their almost solidified predecessors. Such an intrusive mechanism is a random process in which many parameters vary independently and unpredictably. Among them are: the number, relative volume and bulk composition of magma pulses, and their place, sequence and timing of emplacement, as well as modal abundance, phase composition and distribution of intratelluric phenocrysts in magmas upon emplacement. In terms of these variables, one can envisage countless different profiles through alkaline sills produced from only three randomly intruded magma pulses of picritic, picrodoleritic and crinanitic composition. Such multiple sills can readily be distinguished from simple ones formed from a single pulse of magma by anomalous compositional profiles with several prominent breaks in crystallization and compositional sequences. The compositional profile of the Shiant Isles Main Sill is remarkably similar to an M-shaped profile expected from fractional crystallization of a single pulse of olivine-saturated magma along a crystallization path Ol+Sp+L (picrite), Ol+Pl±Sp+L (picrodolerite = troctolite), Ol+Pl+Cpx+L (crinanite). The probability of the accidental formation of such a compositional profile by multiple intrusion ‘liquid into solid’ is exceedingly small, even for the single case of the Shiant Isles Main Sill. The probability approaches zero when considering that exactly the same sequence of intrusive events must have been repeated in about 20 neighbouring alkaline sills with similar compositional profiles. This can only be achieved by some universally operating differentiation process. The best candidate for this is the classical fractional crystallization of magma constrained by liquidus phase equilibria. This suggests that the Shiant Isles Main Sill can be best interpreted and modelled as a simple sill that crystallized from one large pulse of magma, with possible involvement of minor refilling events. Further progress in our knowledge of intrachamber magma fractionation processes will probably enable us to interpret many ‘anomalous’ textural and compositional features of mafic–ultramafic intrusions in the frame of a single magma pulse model.

An area of rocks in S.E. Co. Wexford, the age of which has not been previously established, is now shown to be a metamorphic assemblage, probably of Pre-Cambrian age. It is suggested that this formed the south-western extension of the L. Palaeozoic Irish Sea geanticline postulated by previous workers.

Discovery of a shallow oilfield in Triassic rocks in a fenland area west of Formby, as described by Lees and Taitt (1946, pp. 307–11), led to an attempt to determine the nature of the local Carboniferous rocks, which were regarded as the most likely primary source of the oil found in the Trias.

The Wedza–Mimosa platinum deposit is a loosely stratiform PGE-rich sulphide zone (MSZ) set within a complexly layered, shallow synclinal sequence of pyroxenites and gabbros. Both the MSZ and its host rocks display systematic stratigraphic, lithological and compositional variations between the margins and the axis of the deposit. A well preserved marginal facies is characterized by discordant layering, stratigraphic complexity, evidence of non-equilibrium crystallization, magmatic erosion and extensive pegmatoids, as well as by irregular MSZ development and metal contents. The principal transverse variations and marginal phenomena are interpreted in terms of the high transverse heat flux and heat gradient caused by the narrow trumpet-like cross-sectional structure of the original magma chamber, the magma replenishment process, the angular relationship between the chamber floor and the stratified magma, and the increase in magma density caused by the onset of plagioclase crystallization.

The groundmass of andesitic dykes at Sezaki, southwest Japan, has trachytic texture and contains microscopic shear zones. The shear zones comprise a conjugate pair formed by flattening of the solidifying dyke rock, probably caused by the magma pressure of the still molten part of the dyke. This pressure shortened the solidifying rock perpendicular to the dyke margins and caused it to extrude parallel to the magma flow direction. The groundmass shears indicate that locally the magma flowed 60° upward in the dykes. It is concluded that while groundmass shears are a useful indicator of flow direction in dykes, phenocryst alignment in dykes is strongly influenced by magma-pressure flattening and thus may be a poor indicator of flow direction

Diverse, abundant and usually well-preserved communities of skeletal organisms occur in the lower Pleistocene (Gelasian) siliciclastic deposits of the Greek island of Rhodes. Benthic foraminifers, molluscs and bryozoans have been studied in four measured and sampled sections located in the northern part of the island. Among these bottom-dwelling organisms, numerous extant taxa are good environmental indicators and, combined with field observations and sedimentological data, they provide information on the probable conditions in which they developed. The siliciclastic deposits of the Kritika Formation have been divided into 14 different bio- and lithofacies, which have been further grouped into four facies associations corresponding to four different environmental settings: (1) continental to fluviatile; (2) brackish-water (lagoonal/deltaic); (3) infralittoral (0–20 m); and (4) upper circalittoral (depths of 20–40 m, but also down to c. 50–60 m). Among the marine facies associations, several characteristic biocoenoses have been recognized: soft-bottoms (fine to coarse sands and gravels); seagrass meadows; biogenic calcareous crusts on drowned beachrock slabs; red algal rhodoliths; and bivalve shell beds. In the studied sections, 13 superimposed genetic sequences have been documented. The repetition of similar facies associations within each sequence suggests: (1) a possibly eustasy-controlled, cyclic sedimentation; (2) a general subsidence of Rhodes during the deposition of the studied facies associations; and (3) a mostly constant range of environmental conditions (i.e. sedimentation rates and temperature) throughout the Gelasian.

Professor Charles Lap Worth, in his “Sketch of the Geology of the Birmingham District”, gives a list of species (pp. 343 and 349) from “the Hyolite Limestone” and the associated shales as provisionally determined by Miss E. M. R. Wood (Mrs. Shakespeare). He referred the beds generally to the Lower Cambrian and paralleled them approximately with the fossiliferous beds of Comley, the details of which had not then been worked out. The present study of the Hyolithidæ, etc., of Woodlands Quarry, fully confirms the reference to the Lower Cambrian, and it would seem that the position of the Hyolite Limestone in the faunal sequence is near to or a little below that of the Olenellus and Grey Limestones of Comley at the local summit of the Lower Cambrian. The evidence of this is indirect, for no species has yet been identified from both localities, unless it be Micromitra labradorica, Billings sp. Nevertheless, the Hyolithidæ, etc., found in North America that are nearest to, or representative of, those of Hartshill, are there associated more or less intimately with a number of trilobites and brachiopods that find their representatives in the Comley Limestones.

White mica (illite) crystallinity data, derived mostly from borehole samples, have been used to generate a contoured metamorphic map of the concealed Caledonide fold belt of eastern England and the foreland formed by the Midlands Microcraton. The northern subcrop of the fold belt is characterized by epizonal phyllites and quartzites of possible Cambrian age, whereas anchizonal grades characterize Silurian to Lower Devonian strata of the Anglian Basin in the southern subcrop of the fold belt. Regional metamorphism in the Anglian Basin resulted from deep burial and Acadian deformation beneath a possible overburden of 7 km, assuming a metamorphic field gradient of 36 °C km-1. Late Proterozoic volcaniclastic rocks forming the basement of the microcraton show anchizonal to epizonal grades that probably developed during late Avalonian metamorphism. Cambrian to Tremadoc strata, showing late diagenetic alteration, rest on the basement with varying degrees of metamorphic discordance. During early Palaeozoic times, much of the microcraton was a region of slow subsidence with overburden thicknesses of 3.3–5.5 km. However, concealed Tremadoc strata in the northeast of the microcraton reach anchizonal grades and may have been buried to depths of 7 km beneath an overburden of uncertain age.

A newly recognized left exoccipital-opisthotic of a Callovian pliosaur, derived from the Peterborough or lower Stewarby Members of the Oxford Clay Formation of Peterborough, is described and figured. This isolated bone is tentatively identified as belonging to an ‘adult’ individual of Liopleurodon ferox that is inferred to have had a skull length of 1.26 metres and an overall body length of 6.39 metres.

A Recent examination of the remains of Tertiary Lacertilia and Ophidia preserved in the British Museum having brought to light some new facts in regard to distribution, and also indicating the necessity of revision of certain determinations of other authors, I have thought it advisable to communicate the result of my observations in a collective form.

New U–Pb zircon dating yields a crystallization age of 458±3 Ma for the largely gabbroic Grøndalsfjell Intrusive Complex in the Gjersvik Nappe of the Caledonian Upper Allochthon in Scandinavia. This is identical, within error, to the age of the adjacent Møklevatnet Complex that is dominated by quartz monzodiorite (456±2 Ma), and the two intrusive suites may be regarded as members of a composite intrusion here referred to as the Nesåa Batholith. Mafic members of this calc-alkaline batholith are characterized by slightly positive εNd–εSr values, marked enrichment of the light rare earth elements and high Th/Yb ratios suggestive of a subduction-modified mantle source. The I-type granitoids have similar isotope values and highly fractionated rare earth element patterns, and are interpreted as products from partial melting of garnet-bearing mafic rocks. The Nesåa Batholith intruded a previously deformed, 483 Ma or older, metavolcanic sequence of oceanic arc affinity. The margins of the pluton show evidence for synkinematic emplacement, which is tentatively interpreted in terms of magma ascent controlled by deep-seated shear zones. Further uplift and exhumation of the crystallized plutons was followed by rapid deposition of batholith-derived conglomerates and arkoses in a marginal basin represented by the Limingen Group. The age of the Nesåa Batholith fills the gap in reported ages for Caledonian magmatism, between the Early to Middle Ordovician, oceanic to continental margin type, arc sequences of Laurentian palaeotectonic affinity, and the Late Ordovician–Early Silurian batholith complexes of interpreted Laurentian margin affinity. It is interpreted as an early phase of the more extensive plutonism recorded in the Bindal Batholith of the Uppermost Allochthon to the west. Our model implies that the Early Ordovician oceanic arc sequences of the Gjersvik Nappe were deformed and accreted on to Laurentian margin lithologies prior to Late Ordovician times. This composite crustal assemblage was the source for the voluminous quartz monzodioritic intrusions of the Nesåa Batholith, which formed by partial melting due to ponding of subduction-related mantle derived mafic magmas either within or at the base of the active continental margin.

Mineralogical studies of a silicified serpentinite from the United Arab Emirates throw light on the formative processes. The silicified serpentinite is a residuum of a palaeo-weathering surface that probably developed in a temperate climate with alternating wet and dry periods during middle Eocene to late Miocene times. The rock textures indicate that silicification occurred in a fluid-saturated zone. Silica precipitation is favoured at near-neutral pH. In this study we infer that these pH conditions of the mineralizing fluids could arise in a near-surface mixing zone where acidic meteoric and hyperalkaline groundwater fluids are mingled. This mingling is believed to have resulted from alternating processes of evaporation and precipitation that prevailed during dry and wet seasons, respectively. The silicified serpentinite is composed of > 95% quartz and exhibits a ghost texture of the protolith serpentinite. Preservation of the textures indicates an iso-volumetric grain-by-grain replacement by dissolution of Mg-silicate and simultaneous precipitation of either opal or microquartz as siliceous seeds. These were subsequently overgrown by silica that was probably remobilized from deeply weathered regolith elsewhere.

The swarm of Palaeocene inclined sheets around Loch Scridain in southwest Mull includes basaltic sheets which contain abundant metasedimentary xenoliths that show evidence for having been partially molten. In contrast with the majority of dyke-like conduits worldwide, which have essentially planar margins, the contact of one of these xenolithic sheets with Moine metasediments is irregular along a segment where it crosses interbedded psammites and pelites. Relatively fusible mica schists have been excavated by the magma, on either side of a massive refractory quartzite horizon. Furthermore, the dolerite of the sheet shows only a slight reduction of grain size, through a zone 0.5 m wide, adjacent to its margin, in contrast with the pronounced marginal chilling which characterizes most intrusions of the Loch Scridain swarm. These field relationships are interpreted as evidence that the basic magma which formed this sheet flowed with local turbulence during its emplacement. The estimated liquidus of the magma (1130 °C at 1 atm) is approximately 200 °C above the solidus of pelitic horizons in the country rock, but far below the solidus of the quartzites.

The Late Jurassic – earliest Cretaceous time interval was characterized by a widespread distribution of dysoxiс–anoxiс environments in temperate- and high-latitude epicontinental seas, which could be defined as a shelf dysoxic–anoxic event (SDAE). In contrast to black shales related to oceanic anoxic events, deposits generated by the SDAE were especially common in shelf sites in the Northern Hemisphere. The onset and termination of the SDAE was strongly diachronous across different regions. The SDAE was not associated with significant disturbances of the carbon cycle. Deposition of organic-carbon-rich sediment and the existence of dysoxic–anoxic conditions during the SDAE lasted up to c. 20 Ma, but this event did not cause any remarkable biotic extinction. Temperate- and high-latitude black shale occurrences across the Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary have been reviewed. Two patterns of black shale deposition during the SDAE are recognized: (1) Subboreal type, with numerous thin black shale beds, bounded by sediments with very low total organic carbon (TOC) values; and (2) Boreal type, distinguished by predominantly thick black shale successions showing high TOC values and prolonged anoxic–dysoxic conditions. These types appear to be unrelated to differences in accommodation space, and can be clearly recognized irrespective of the thickness of shale-bearing units. Black shales in high-latitude areas in the Southern Hemisphere strongly resemble Boreal types of black shale by their mode of occurrence. The causes of this SDAE are linked to long-term warming and changes in oceanic circulation. Additionally, the long-term disturbance of planktonic communities may have triggered overall increased productivity in anoxia-prone environments.