The Sorachi Group, composed of Upper Jurassic ophiolite and Lower Cretaceous island-arc volcano-sedimentary cover, provides a record of Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous sedimentation and volcanism in an island-arc setting off the eastern margin of the Asian continent. Stratigraphic changes in the nature and volume of the Sorachi Group volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks reveal four tectonic stages. These stages resulted from changes in the subduction direction of the Pacific oceanic plate. Stage I in the Late Jurassic was characterized by extensive submarine eruptions of tholeiitic basalt from the back-arc basin. Slab roll-back caused rifting and sea-floor spreading in the supra-subduction zone along the active Asian continental margin. Stage II corresponded to the Berriasian and featured localized trachyandesitic volcanism that formed volcanic islands with typical island-arc chemical compositions. At the beginning of this stage, movement of the Pacific oceanic plate shifted from northeastward to northwestward. During Stage III, in the Valanginian, submarine basaltic volcanism was followed by subsidence. The Pacific oceanic plate motion turned clockwise, and the plate boundary between the Asian continent and the Pacific oceanic plate changed from convergent to transform. During Stage IV in the Hauterivian–Barremian, in situ volcanism ceased in the Sorachi–Yezo basin, and the volcanic front migrated west of the Sorachi–Yezo basin.

Paradoxides jemtlandicus Wiman, 1903, from strata near the boundary between the oelandicus Stage and the paradoxissimus Stage of the middle Cambrian in central Sweden, is redescribed using more complete specimens than were known hitherto. It is one of the earliest species of the genus Paradoxides sensu stricto, and though the form of the dorsal exoskeleton and the transverse shape of the hypostome are normal for the genus, compared with typical Paradoxides such as P. paradoxissimus it shows features that can be regarded as primitive. These features include the shape of the glabella, the lack of strong fusion of the rostrum with the hypostome, the acute inner spine angle of the librigena and the short pygidium; they are reminiscent of some species of Hydrocephalus.

The Jurassic Mount Poster Formation of eastern Ellsworth Land, southern Antarctic Peninsula, comprises silicic ignimbrites related to intracontinental rifting of Gondwana. The identification of less voluminous basaltic and sedimentary facies marginal to the silicic deposits has led to a reclassification of the volcanic units into the Ellsworth Land Volcanic Group. This is formally subdivided into two formations: the Mount Poster Formation (silicic ignimbrites), and the Sweeney Formation (basaltic and sedimentary facies). The Mount Poster Formation rhyolites are an intracaldera sequence greater than 1 km in thickness. The basaltic and sedimentary facies of the Sweeney Formation are consistent with deposition in a terrestrial setting into, or close to, water. The geochemistry of the Mount Poster Formation is consistent with derivation of the intracaldera rhyolites from a long-lived, upper crustal magma chamber. The basalts of the Sweeney Formation are intermediate between asthenosphere- and lithosphere-derived magmas, with little or no subduction-modified component. The basalt could represent a rare erupted part of the basaltic underplate that acted as the heat source for local generation of the rhyolites. U–Pb ion microprobe zircon geochronology of samples from the Mount Poster Formation yield an average eruption age of 183.4±1.4 Ma. Analysis of detrital zircons from a Sweeney Formation sandstone suggest a maximum age of deposition of 183±4 Ma and the two formations are considered coeval. In addition, these ages are coincident with eruption of the Karoo-Ferrar Igneous Province in southern Africa and East Antarctica. Our interpretation of the Ellsworth Land Volcanic Group is consistent with the model that the Jurassic volcanism of Patagonia and the Antarctic Peninsula took place in response to intracontinental extension driven by arrival of a plume in that area.

Recent detailed mapping, section logging and an improved understanding of the geological evolution of the Antarctic Peninsula provide a robust framework for an improved lithostratigraphic subdivision of the Latady Basin, eastern Ellsworth Land. Within the Latady Basin we recognize two main groups: Ellsworth Land Volcanic Group and Latady Group. The focus of this paper is the Latady Group, which is formally subdivided into five formations: Anderson Formation, Witte Formation, Hauberg Mountains Formation, Cape Zumberge Formation and Nordsim Formation. Middle Jurassic, shallow marine deposits of the Anderson Formation are overlain by quiet anoxic deposits assigned to the Witte Formation. The start of the Late Jurassic is marked by the deposition of higher energy deposits of the Hauberg Mountains Formation, subdivided into three members (Long Ridge, Mount Hirman and Novocin members) that reflect varying lithological and environmental characteristics. Thermal subsidence during the latest Jurassic led to deposition of the basinal Cape Zumberge Formation, while uplift of an active continental arc along the Antarctic Peninsula led to deposition of the terrestrial Nordsim Formation in the latest Jurassic to earliest Cretaceous. The evolution of the Latady Basin reflects early extension during Gondwana break-up, from the Early Jurassic to earliest Cretaceous, and is consistent with a shift in the underlying forces driving extension in the Weddell Sea area from intracontinental rifting related to a mantle plume, to active margin forces in response to subduction.

Well-preserved miospore and organic-walled microphytoplankton assemblages have been recovered from the black shaly series hosting the massive sulphide deposits of Sotiel-Coronada Mine (Iberian Pyrite Belt). The productive samples yielded miospore assemblages representing the uppermost Famennian Retispora lepidophyta–Verrucosisporites nitidus (LN) miospore Biozone of Western Europe. This palynological evidence has important implications for the local geology, constraining the commencement of the volcanic activity and corroborating the previously-defined local tectonic style. Moreover, at regional scale, the new data permit correlation of the black shaly series (which hosts the mineralization in all the sulphide deposits hitherto dated in the region), reinforcing the hypothesis of an anoxic event occurring in the Iberian Pyrite Belt in the latest Devonian times.

The radiation of early Carboniferous foraminifers and rugose corals following the Devonian–Carboniferous crisis offers the best tool for high-resolution correlations in the Mississippian, together with the conodonts in the Tournaisian, notably in the Namur–Dinant Basin. However, some of the guides are facies-controlled and an integrated approach combining biostratigraphy, sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy is critical to identify delayed entries, potential stratigraphic gaps and to avoid diachronous correlations. The main difficulty is in correlating shallow and deeper water facies at any given time. In existing zonations, the Viséan part of the scheme is always more detailed, reflecting the widespread development of shallow-water platforms in the early Viséan which created conditions more suitable for foraminifers and rugose corals over large areas. In contrast, the Tournaisian zones, less well documented, reflect unfavourable environmental conditions in the lower ramp (Dinant Sedimentation Area) and pervasive dolomitization of the inner ramp (Condroz and Namur Sedimentation Areas). Recent progress in understanding the Belgian early Carboniferous sequence stratigraphy and lithostratigraphy, and revision of the biostratigraphy of the key sections, strongly modify former biostratigraphic interpretations. Improvements mainly concern the latest Devonian, the late Tournaisian and the early Viséan. The late Devonian and the Tournaisian are equated with foraminifer zones DFZ1 to DFZ8 and MFZ1 to MFZ8 respectively. The Viséan correlates with zones MFZ9 to MFZ14. Zone MFZ15 straddles the Viséan–Namurian boundary and Zone MFZ16 is the youngest Mississippian zone. The rugose corals allow the recognition of ten zones, RC0 to RC9, covering the Strunian (late Famennian) to Serpukhovian interval. Discrepancies with former zonations are discussed. The Moliniacian Stage is emended to restore the coincidence between its base and that of the Viséan.

Combined kinematic, structural and palaeostress (calcite twinning, fault-slip data) analyses are used to study the exhumation mechanism of the high-pressure rocks exposed on the island of Crete (southern Aegean, Greece). Our study shows that the evolution of windows in central Crete was controlled by two main contractional phases of deformation. The first phase (D1) was related to the ductile-stage of exhumation. NNW–SSE compression during D1 caused layer- and transport-parallel shortening in the upper thrust sheets, resulting in nappe stacking via low-angle thrusting. Synchronously, intracontinental subduction led to high-pressure metamorphism which, however, did not affect the most external parts of the southern Hellenides. Subsequent upward ductile extrusion of high-pressure rocks was characterized by both down-section increase of strain and up-section increase of the pure shear component. The second phase (D2) was associated with the brittle-stage of exhumation. D2 was governed by NNE–SSW compression and involved conspicuous thrust-related folding, considerable tectonic imbrication and formation of a Middle Miocene basin. The major D2-related Psiloritis Thrust cross-cuts the entire nappe pile, and its trajectory partially follows and reworks the D1-related contact between upper and lower (high-pressure) tectonic units. Eduction and doming of the Talea Window was accompanied by gravity sliding of the upper thrust sheets and by out-of-the-syncline thrusting. Late-orogenic collapse also contributed to the exhumation process. Therefore, it seems that the high-pressure rocks of central Crete were exhumed under continuous compression and that the role of extension was previously overestimated.

The first tetrapod fossil from the Rewan Formation of the Galilee Basin, central Queensland, Australia, is identified as Lydekkerina huxleyi, a stereospondyl found elsewhere only in the Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone of South Africa. Apomorphies shared with L. huxleyi are: anterior palatal vacuity with anterodorsal projections from its posterior margin; ventral surface of skull roof with series of thickened ridges (condition unknown in other lydekkerinids); and vomerine shagreen present (possible autapomorphic reversal). Restudy of the only other Australian lydekkerinid, Chomatobatrachus halei, shows it to be distinct from L. huxleyi. The Rewan Formation, undifferentiated in the Galilee Basin, can be correlated with the Rewan Group of the Bowen Basin, and to the early part of the Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone of the Karoo Basin, South Africa, which are of Griesbachian age. Varying palaeoenvironments may contribute to the contrasting nature of the Australian and South African faunas.

The Seiland Igneous Province (SIP) of northern Norway comprises a suite of mainly gabbroic plutons, with subordinate ultramafic, syenitic and felsic intrusions. Several intrusions from the Seiland Igneous Province have been dated by ID-TIMS U–Pb zircon and monazite analyses. The Hasvik Gabbro on the island of Sørøy, previously assigned an age of 700±33 Ma by Sm–Nd, yields a U–Pb zircon age of 562±6 Ma, within error of the Storelv Gabbro (569±5 Ma) and a diorite associated with the Breivikbotn Gabbro (571±4 Ma). Various intrusions on the Øksfjord peninsula give nearly identical ages of 565±9 Ma (gabbro), 566±4 Ma (monzonite), 565±5 Ma (monzodiorite), 570±9 Ma (norite), and 566±1 Ma (orthopyroxenite). These ages overlap with those from Sørøy, and define a single and short-lived period of gabbroic (to felsic) magmatism for the region between 570 and 560 Ma, pre-dating a subordinate episode of alkalic magmatism at 530–520 Ma. The U–Pb ages contradict the previous geochronological interpretation for the Finnmark area, which implied a period of 250 m.y. for the emplacement of the SIP intrusions. The new age data also clearly distinguish the Seiland intrusions, emplaced into the Sørøy Group metasediments of the Kalak Nappe Complex, from several older granitic intrusions (c. 850 to 600 Ma) that cut the Sørøy Group farther east and south. The coincident ages of the different Seiland intrusive bodies also contradict the previous structural model for the area, which posits that the different gabbro bodies were emplaced at intervals, with compressional deformation affecting the gabbros between periods of intrusion. The short time span between the main plutonic phases strongly suggests that the mechanism for the emplacement of mafic magma operated in a single, probably extensional, tectonic regime. The mafic intrusions were later deformed and metamorphosed to at least amphibolite facies, most likely by the Scandian (420 Ma) phase of the Caledonian Orogeny.

A dinosaur braincase from the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian) of Oxfordshire (England) is described. The specimen, which has historical significance, has been erratically attributed to either a sauropod or a theropod on the basis of vague phenetic resemblances. It is here re-interpreted in the light of recent cladistic analyses of dinosaurs, allowing the first proper character-based discussion of its affinities. It resembles those of ornithischian and prosauropod dinosaurs in the absence of a prominent, caudolaterally directed bony sheet from either the crista tuberalis (as in all theropods) or the crista prootica (as in all sauropods except juveniles of the eusauropod Shunosaurus). This braincase shows two synapomorphic characters of the Eusauropoda: the region of the cranium is rostrocaudally shortened and the long axis of the supratemporal fenestra is transversely oriented. For these characters, ornithischians, theropods, and prosauropods retain the plesiomorphic condition. It is concluded that the specimen is an important exemplar of a Middle Jurassic sauropod braincase and it is suggested that it could be from the eusauropod Cetiosaurus.

We report here a garnet–spinel orthopyroxenite in close association with an ultrahigh-temperature (UHT) granulite from the central part of the Madurai Granulite Block in southern India. The garnet–spinel orthopyroxenite is almost entirely composed of orthopyroxene, spinel and rare garnet in a granular texture. Spinels in the rock are characterized by high Mg (XMg = 0.69–0.71) with low Cr and Fe3+, consistent with compositions reported from spinels occurring within xenoliths in kimberlites and high pressure–temperature (P–T) Alpine complexes. The orthopyroxenes have high Al content (Al2O3 up to 4.85 wt%), typical of equilibration under high P–T conditions. The P–T estimates derived for the garnet–spinel orthopyroxenite indicate temperatures of around 1000°C and pressures exceeding 17 kbar. The data indicate that UHT metamorphism in this locality traversed from above 17 kbar to 11 kbar prior to the final stage of isothermal decompression. Our study reports the highest pressures obtained by far, for extreme crustal metamorphism in southern India and elsewhere in Gondwana. The multi-stage decompression observed in the UHT rocks associated with the high P–T garnet–spinel orthopyroxenite could be correlated to extension of the crust and possibly of the lithospheric mantle and/or its delamination, with the asthenospheric mantle as the ultimate heat source, during the final stage of amalgamation of the Gondwana supercontinent.