The Noe-Nygaard Intrusion is a 4 × 2.5 km stock composed of layered gabbros and wehrlites within the Precambrian basement of the coastal mountains west of the Kialineq Plutonic Complex. Transgressive relationships to Tertiary mafic dykes and the occurrence of abundant metabasaltic xenoliths signify a Tertiary age for the intrusion. The intrusion is characterized by alternating zones of gabbro and wehrlite; gabbro is both intruded and replaced by wehrlite, and the wehrlite zones are characterized by abundant metabasaltic xenoliths. Based on 87Sr/86Sr ratios, mica, olivine and oxide gabbros are all cumulates, crystallized at different differentiation stages from a common parental magma. Field relations, together with similarities in strontium isotope ratios, and in the major and rare earth element (REE) mineral chemistry between gabbros and wehrlites, indicate that the wehrlite bodies were formed by the dissolution of plagioclase from a gabbro cumulate mush by H2O derived from dehydration and the partial assimilation of metabasaltic xenoliths. In terms of their REE characteristics, melts from which the Noe-Nygaard Intrusion crystallized are within the compositional range of melts for other early Tertiary mafic/ultramafic complexes of East Greenland. However, they were generated at a greater mean melting pressure, and have less radiogenic strontium isotope ratios than the nearby Imilik mafic/ultramafic complex, supporting existing models for mantle heterogeneity at the time of continental break-up. The abundance of metabasaltic xenoliths in the Noe-Nygaard Intrusion provides further evidence for the lateral extent of the North Atlantic flood basalt province, which onshore has been mostly removed by glacial erosion south of 68° N in Greenland.

The Late Triassic of the back arc Domeyko Basin, Chile is characterized by the onset of marine sedimentation that persisted throughout the rest of the Mesozoic. Carbonate bulk samples from the Punta del Viento Limestone Formation have yielded a numerically small, but apparently widespread, conodont fauna including Epigondolella mosheri, Epigondolella englandi and Neogondolella steinbergensis. These specimens indicate a Rhaetian (Epigondolella mosheri conodont Biozone roughly equivalent to the Paracochloceras amoenum ammonoid Biozone) age for this unit. Their recovery represents the first record of conodonts from Chile, and also indicates a considerable potential for use in correlating sequence stratigraphic events within the Mesozoic Marginal Sea in Colombia, Peru and Chile.

Isotopic and geochemical data indicate that intrusions in the eastern Creignish Hills of central Cape Breton Island, Canada represent the roots of arcs active at ∼ 540–585 Ma and ∼ 440 Ma. Times of intrusion are closely dated by (1) a nearly concordant U–Pb zircon age of 553±2 Ma in diorites of the Creignish Hills pluton; (2) a lower intercept U–Pb zircon age of 540±3 Ma that is within analytical error of 40Ar/39 Ar hornblende plateau isotope-correlation ages of 545 and 550±7 Ma in the River Denys diorite; and (3) an upper intercept U–Pb zircon age of 586±2 Ma in the Melford granitic stock. On the other hand, ∼ 441–455 Ma 40Ar/39 Ar muscovite plateau ages in the host rock adjacent to the Skye Mountain granite provide the best estimate of the time of intrusion, and are consistent with the presence of granitic dykes cutting the Skye Mountain gabbro–diorite previously dated at 438±2 Ma. All the intrusions are calc-alkaline; the Skye Mountain granite is peraluminous. Trace element abundances and Nb and Ti depletions of the intrusive rocks are characteristic of subduction-related rocks. The ∼ 540–585 Ma intrusions form part of an extensive belt running across central Cape Breton Island, and represent the youngest Neoproterozoic arc magmas in this part of Avalonia. Nearby, they are overlain by Middle Cambrian units containing rift-related volcanic rocks, which bracket the transition from convergence to extension between ∼ 540 and 505/520 Ma. This transition varies along the Avalon arc: 590 Ma in southern New England, 560–538 Ma in southern New Brunswick, and 570 Ma in eastern Newfoundland. The bi-directional diachronism in this transition is attributed to northwestward subduction of two mid-ocean ridges bordering an oceanic plate, and the migration of two ridge–trench–transform triple points. Following complete subduction of the ridges, remnant mantle upwelling along the subducted ridges produced uplift, gravitational collapse and the high-temperature/low-pressure metamorphism in the arc in both southern New Brunswick and central Cape Breton Island. The ∼ 440 Ma arc magmatism in the Creignish Hills extends through the Cape Breton Highlands and into southern Newfoundland, and has recently been attributed to northwesterly subduction along the northern margin of the Rheic Ocean.

Within a largely concealed, caldera-related volcaniclastic succession of the Ordovician Borrowdale Volcanic Group in the western Lake District, two thick (100–350 m) ignimbrites within the Fleming Hall Formation exhibit a number of features that in combination make them unusual deposits. They are both homogeneous with comparatively low-SiO2 (63%) bulk composition, contain only a moderate crystal content, are generally poor in lithic clasts, show uniformly very dense welding (yielding parataxitic to massive vitrophyric texture) throughout and lack associated fall-out or surge deposits. Ignimbrites of comparable bulk composition in this geological setting are usually part of zoned sheets and/or frequently very crystal-rich. Large-scale, unzoned densely welded ignimbrites are usually rhyodacitic to rhyolitic. By contrast, ignimbrites of intermediate composition that display dense welding are relatively small deposits that form by agglutination of hot, plastic spatter.

It is postulated that the Fleming Hall ignimbrites were derived from low column height, low explosivity eruptions that conserved heat and minimized entrainment of accidental lithic clasts and the formation of fine ash. The very dense welding and lack of bubble-wall shard vitroclastic textures indicate that pyroclasts were hot and relatively dry, probably occurring as mildly vesicular (scoriaceous) fragments which welded or fused together during aggradational deposition rather than by post-depositional compactional loading. There is little variation in the degree of matrix or melt crystallization throughout the two ignimbrites, despite the fact that high temperatures must have been maintained for many years following deposition. Both display virtually ubiquitous development of micropoikilitic glass devitrification texture, which suggests that the viscosity of the supercooled dacitic melt was sufficiently high, probably due to initial degassing, to inhibit significant melt crystallization after deposition.

The eruption of the Fleming Hall magmas was probably initiated by the rise or injection of hotter, more basic, magma, and not by overpressurization due to volatile exsolution resulting from cooling and crystallization. Foundering of the chamber roof caused forcible and rapid eruption of the magma, probably along a series of volcanotectonic faults rather than a central vent, and probably flooded the resultant caldera depression. It is predicted that this type of eruption will not have produced a widely dispersed deposit, the bulk of which may have been largely contained within its own caldera.

Late Cretaceous and Miocene collisions of the Arabian, Anatolian and Eurasian plates, as shown by widespread ophiolitic exposures along the suture, created favourable geological conditions for the formation of the surface and subsurface structures in the Gaziantep Basin, southeast Turkey. The late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) emplacement of the Kocali–Karadut ophiolite complex induced subsidence in the northwestern zone of the Kastel Basin during the early Alpine Orogeny and influenced the structural evolution of the foreland area. The Dead Sea Fault, which originated in the Red Sea in Miocene time, propagated towards the northwest in the Suez Gulf and the north-northeast in southeast Turkey, and influenced the structural evolution of the Gaziantep Basin. These two major tectonic events produced many thrusts, thrust-related subsurface and surface anticlines, faults, fractures, flower structures and basaltic flows in the area. Geological and geophysical investigations indicate the existence of two important structural phases. The older structures were formed during the late Cretaceous movements, but they have been reactivated by latest Miocene tectonic activities with appearance of the Strands of the Dead Sea Fault in the sedimentary basin. The geothermal studies show also that, as a result of the Tertiary transgressions and volcanic activity, the northern and southern sectors of the Gaziantep Basin underwent differing subsidence and structural histories.

Thin bioclastic limestone beds (‘coquinas’) in the Vectis Formation (Wealden Group, Lower Cretaceous) of the Isle of Wight, southern England, exhibit a range of biofabrics and internal stratigraphies. These features are attributed to both simple and complex storm deposition of allochthonous biogenic and siliciclastic materials in coastal lagoons and on adjacent mudflats. These modes of deposition facilitated preservation of dinosaur trackways, desiccation cracks, shallow-tier trace fossils and in situ bivalve colonies through rapid burial. The coquinas thus preserve a record of surficial muds, commonly lost through reworking. The principal components of the coquinas comprise dispersed elements from within the argillaceous ‘background’ facies. Some of these beds are laterally traceable for up to 27 km, providing the foundations for a high-resolution event-stratigraphic framework.

It is argued that there is overwhelming evidence from a good graptolite record that the earliest club mosses on Earth were of Gorstian (Ludlow, Silurian) age, and that Baragwanathia longifolia Lang & Cookson and its associated flora persisted through the Přídolí and into the early Devonian, showing some changes during this time.