A recently computed fit of the African and South American continents is astonishingly close, apart from an overlap of some 120 miles in the vicinity of the Niger delta. This paper attempts to determine whether there is a genuine misfit at this point or whether the delta may have grown beyond the continental margin after the continents separated. The evidence suggests that final separation took place in Albian times, and that the bulge of the present continental edge into the Atlantic Ocean has resulted from post-Cretaceous development of the delta. The gross structure of the delta region and also the associated minor structures are considered to represent a passive response to the influx of sediment from the Niger River.

The directions of magnetization of samples from two sites in the Devonian Ashprington Volcanic Series, Devonshire, are similar in spite of the difference in the dip of the lavas. They are close to the mean direction for the Keuper Marls and it is concluded that they resulted from remagnetization of the lavas during the Triassic.

A spiral brachidium has been discovered in the Lower Jurassic brachiopod Cadomella, which is generally regarded as the last representative of the Chonetidina. Cadomella is transferred to the Koninckinidae, which are considered to be spire-bearing Chonetidina rather than aberrant Spiriferida. This interpretation implies another independent evolution of spiralia within the Brachiopoda.

The Dictyonema species currently named flabelliforme (Eichwald) (as distinct from D. norvegicum Kjerulf) from the Tremadocian of Estonia is described and compared with the lectotype of Kjerulf's D. graptolithinum from Norway, and their synonymy is confirmed.

Diagnostic analcime-, heulandite-, and laumontite-bearing mineral assemblages from four areas in the Upper Carboniferous and the Permian of New South Wales have been correlated with the rank of the associated coals, represented by the carbon content of vitrinite. The coals are high-volatile bituminous to semi-anthracitic; their vitrinites contain from about 82 per cent up to an estimated 91 per cent carbon. Analcime-quartz is found associated with the lower-rank, the laumontite-rich assemblages with the higher-rank coals. Comparison with a similar correlation in Northern Yakutia (U.S.S.R.) indicates that diagnostic zeolites are not necessarily associated with coals of the same range of rank in different areas. Unlike the occurrence and stability range of burial metamorphic zeolitic assemblages, degree of coalification is probably independent of partial pressures of H2O and CO2: it is controlled mainly by maximum depth of burial, its duration, and the geothermal gradient.

Basal and perhaps higher Coal Measures are overthrust by earlier rocks at the front of the Hercynian arc of southern Ireland. The marine bands, lacking cephalopod phases, are faunally poor and in respect are unlike the marine bands of the other Coal Measure outliers of the South. The coal seams are crushed and in part pulverized and appear to have developed a “pinch and swell” structure.

A new correlation of the Precambrian Torridonian sediments of Rhum and Skye is suggested which equates the Bagh na h-Uamha Shale of Rhum with the upper part of the Kinloch Formation in Skye and with the Diabaig Formation on the mainland. The Rudha na Roinne Grit, Loch nan Eala Arkose, and Guirdil Arkose of Rhum are correlated with the Applecross Formation. The occurrence of sedimentary cycles at the base of the Applecross in Rhum and Skye is noted. The strata beneath the Kinloch Formation in Skye are not represented either in Rhum or elsewhere on the foreland and do not belong to the Diabaig.

Early folds (F1) in the Mylor Beds are upright or overturned to the north-west and trend north-easterly. They are cut by a flat-lying cleavage (S2) which is related to small-scale recumbent folds (F2) superimposed on the steep limbs of the early folds. The sequence of development of folds can be found elsewhere in the Mylor-Gram-scatho Beds and also in the Lizard Head mica schists. It is shown that F2 folds and S2 cleavage resulted from vertical shortening, which is believed to have been caused by the superimposition of slide sheets. It is suggested that the previously accepted age order of the Mylor and Gramscatho Beds should be reversed.