The evolution of Neogene volcanic activity in the Central Taurus is investigated; stratigraphical and radiometric age data from the Ürgüp (Kayseri) basin idicate that volcanism in the area began at least as early as Upper Miocene, lasting up to prehistoric times. The volcanism maintained throughout this time interval a calcalkaline character. The diachronous end of calcalkaline volcanism along the Taurus margin is tentatively related to the differential collision between the Afro-Arabian and the Anatolian plates, probably due to an original irregular shape of the Anatolian continental margin.

Quantified balanced and restored crustal cross-sections across the NW Zagros Mountains are presented in this work integrating geological and geophysical local and global datasets. The balanced crustal cross-section reproduces the surficial folding and thrusting of the thick cover succession, including the near top of the Sarvak Formation (~90 Ma) that forms the top of the restored crustal cross-section. The base of the Arabian crust in the balanced cross-section is constrained by recently published seismic receiver function results showing a deepening of the Moho from 42 ± 2 km in the undeformed foreland basin to 56 ± 2 km beneath the High Zagros. The internal parts of the deformed crustal cross-section are constrained by new seismic tomographic sections imaging a ~50° NE-dipping sharp contact between the Arabian and Iranian crusts. These surfaces bound an area of 10800 km2 that should be kept constant during the Zagros orogeny. The Arabian crustal cross-section is restored using six different tectonosedimentary domains according to their sedimentary facies and palaeobathymetries, and assuming Airy isostasy and area conservation. While the two southwestern domains were directly determined from well-constrained surface data, the reconstruction of the distal domains to the NE was made using the recent margin model of Wrobel-Daveau et al. (2010) and fitting the total area calculated in the balanced cross-section. The Arabian continental–oceanic boundary, at the time corresponding to the near top of the Sarvak Formation, is located 169 km to the NE of the trace of the Main Recent Fault. Shortening is estimated at ~180 km for the cover rocks and ~149 km for the Arabian basement, including all compressional events from Late Cretaceous to Recent time, with an average shortening rate of ~2 mm yr−1 for the last 90 Ma.

The lithospheric mantle beneath the North China Craton changed dramatically in its geophysical and geochemical characteristics from Palaeozoic to Cenozoic times. This study uses samples of Mesozoic basalts and mafic intrusions from the North China Craton to investigate the nature of this mantle in Mesozoic times. Sr–Nd–Pb isotopic data demonstrate that the Late Mesozoic lithospheric mantle was extremely heterogeneous. In the central craton or the Luzhong region, it is slightly Sr–Nd isotopically enriched, beneath the Taihangshan region it has an EM1 character (87Sr/86Sri=0.7050–0.7066; εNd(t)=−17–−10), and beneath the Luxi–Jiaodong region, it possesses EM2-like characteristics (87Sr/86Sri up to 0.7114). Compositional variation with time is also apparent in the Mesozoic lithospheric mantle. Our data suggest that the old lithospheric mantle was modified during Mesozoic times by a silicic melt, where beneath the Luxi–Jiaodong region it was severely modified, but in the Luzhong and Taihangshan regions the effects were much less marked. The silicic melt may have been the product of partial melting of crustal materials brought into the mantle by the subducted slab during the formation of circum-cratonic orogenic belts. This Mesozoic mantle did not survive for a long time, and was replaced by a Cenozoic mantle with depleted geochemical characteristics.

The bankfull width (w) of modern meandering rivers (sinuosity >1.7) is related to bankfull depth (h) by the equation w = 6.8h1.54. The equation may be used to calculate limits for the bankfull widths of palaeochannels that deposited alluvial fining-upwards cycles. Calculated bankfull widths and measured bankfull widths from epsilon cross stratification are further used to state ranges of values for meander wavelength and mean annual discharge using existing empirical equations. The empirical equations directly relating width/depth ratios to sediment load and sinuosity are shown to be generally valid only for small rivers because of the increase of width/depth ratios as meandering rivers increase in size.

Late Precambrian (∼ 750±200 Ma) glaciogenic sequences exhibit substantial evidence for marked climatic inequability of seasonal and longer periodicity (10° to ∼ 106 yrs): (1) tillites are closely associated with dolomites, limestones and evaporites apparently of warm-water origin; (2) tillites occur with red beds and iron-formations whose iron probably was derived ultimately from lateritic weathering; (3) glacial dropstones occur locally within carbonates and iron-formations; (4) laminae, interpreted as varves by many workers, are common in argillites, carbonates and iron-formations; and (5) permafrost structures attributable to repeated seasonal changes of temperature are locally abundant. Such climatic, particularly seasonal inequability apparently conflicts however with the probable low (≲30°) palaeolatitudes of deposition of numerous late Precambrian glaciogenic sequences.

The contradictions presented by such sequences may be resolved by postulating a considerably increased obliquity of the ecliptic (ε) in late Precambrian time. Substantial increase in e would: (1) greatly amplify global seasonality; (2) weaken climatic zonation, thus allowing warm-water sedimentation and lateritic weathering over wide latitudes; and (3) increase the ratio of radiation received annually at either pole to that received at the equator, so when 54° < ε < 126° low and middle latitudes (≤ 43°) would be glaciated in preference to the poles. Ice sheets and permafrost thus can be envisaged principally in low and middle latitudes with contiguous warm-water and iron-rich facies under a markedly seasonal climate. The concept of secular change of e is supported by other geological evidence.

Evidence is presented that many of the major strike faults in the British and Irish Caledonides were active as sinistral strike-slip zones in the end-Silurian to pre-mid-Devonian period. Some, such as the Highland Boundary Fault, moved in this way at an earlier stage in the Ordovician. These data allow the Caledonian rocks lying between the Laurentian miogeocline (whose basement is represented by the Lewisian, Moine and possibly the Dalradian) and the Gondwanaland miogeocline (Midland Platform and Welsh Basin) to be re-analysed as a group of disorganized terranes which originated to the southwest in North America and southwest Europe/Africa prior to the Silurian. The Highland Border Terrane and Northern Belt Terrane are interpreted as duplicated pieces of a mid-Ordovician sequence which was a back are to northwest subduction. The Midland Valley Terrane is interpreted as a slice of Laurentian foreland onto which ophiolites were obducted in the lower Ordovician but which became the basement of a continental margin arc to northwest subduction in the mid-Ordovician. The Cockburnland Terrane is inferred to be part of the same arc repeated and then broken up and dispersed by continuing strike slip. The Connemara Terrane is regarded as an allochthonous piece of the Dalradian miogeocline and the South Mayo Terrane as a remnant of an early Ordovician arc and fore arc which in mid-Ordovician times became a back arc/marginal basin to northwest subduction. The Lake District-Wexford Terrane is part of an arc to southeast subduction under Gondwanaland whose activity climaxed in the mid-Ordovician. The Central Terrane is interpreted as a Silurian overstep assemblage which blankets the junction between Laurentian- and Gondwanaland-derived oceanic terranes, and therefore Iapetus is regarded as an Ordovician ocean which closed prior to the Silurian. The model suggests that at the end of the Silurian, a clockwise-rotating Gondwanaland, having carried Laurentia into collision with Baltica, broke free and created a major sinistral strike-slip zone which disrupted the Ordovician palaeogeography in the British Isles/North American sector of Iapetus.

It is suggested that the Benue Trough may have been initiated by the extension of the equatorial oceanic fracture zones onto the continent during the early stages of the separation of Africa and South America. A transcurrent movement along deep-seated faults of the basement is responsible for the structure of the trough. After a period of extension characterized by the sedimentary infilling of the trough and igneous activity, the trough is turned into a chain through a short phase of compression. A discrete pattern of ‘en echelon’ folds and the strain pattern deduced from the analysis of large scale and microfracturing correspond to a N–S to N160° E direction of compression coupled to a sinistral transcurrent movement along a NE–SW direction. The difference in age of the folding phase in the northern and southern parts of the chain indicates a diachronous nature for this tectonic event in relation to the wrench regime. The Tertiary evolution of the trough marked by a tensional regime resulting in an E–W extension is to be related to the Cameroon Volcanic Line.

A simple theoretical explanation is given for the formation of systematic tension joints in sedimentary rocks. This theory shows that the frequency of occurrence of joints in a bed of rock is dependent upon the physical properties of the rock bed, the physical properties of the surrounding rock beds, the thickness of the rock bed, and the degree of tectonic deformation.

The Altai orogen (northwest China) represents the southwestern margin of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt. Geochemical and Nd–Sr isotope analyses were carried out on the Palaeozoic sedimentary and granitic rocks in order to trace their sources and to evaluate the pattern of continental growth of the orogen. Nd isotopic data for both the granites and sediments suggest a significant proportion of middle Proterozoic crust beneath the Altai orogen. However, addition of juvenile material (arc/back-arc oceanic crust) during Palaeozoic times is also significant. Trace elements and isotopic data of sediments suggest their sources were immature. They represent mixtures between a Palaeozoic juvenile component and an evolved continental crust. The early Palaeozoic sediments show εNd(T) = −3.4 to −5.0, TDM = 1.5–1.8 Ga, and ISr = 0.710–0.712. They represent a passive margin setting, with a predominance of evolved crustal material in the source. The Devonian sequences, however, might have been deposited in a back-arc basin setting, produced by subduction of the Junggar oceanic crust along the Irtysh fault. A significant addition of arc material into the sedimentary basin is responsible for the highly variable εNd values (−6 to 0) and ISr (0.711–0.706). The Carboniferous rocks were also deposited in a back-arc basin setting but with predominantly arc material in the source as suggested by an abrupt increase in εNd(T) (+6 to +3) and decrease in ISr (0.7045–0.7051). Voluminous syn-orogenic granitoids have εNd(T) = +2.1 to −4.3, ISr = 0.705–0.714 and TDM = 0.7–1.6 Ga. They were not derived by melting of local metasedimentary rocks as suggested by previous workers, but by melting of a more juvenile source at depth. Post-orogenic granites have higher εNd(T) (∼ +4.4) than the syn-orogenic granitoids, indicating their derivation from a deeper crustal level where juvenile crust may predominate.

A vast sequence of quartz-rich sandstone was deposited over North Africa and Arabia during Early Palaeozoic times, in the aftermath of Neoproterozoic Pan-African orogeny and the amalgamation of Gondwana. This rock sequence forms a relatively thin sheet (1–3 km thick) that was transported over a very gentle slope and deposited over a huge area. The sense of transport indicates unroofing of Gondwana terranes but the exact provenance of the siliciclastic deposit remains unclear. Detrital zircons from Cambrian arkoses that immediately overlie the Neoproterozoic Arabian–Nubian Shield in Israel and Jordan yielded Neoproterozoic U–Pb ages (900–530 Ma), suggesting derivation from a proximal source such as the Arabian–Nubian Shield. A minor fraction of earliest Neoproterozoic and older age zircons was also detected. Upward in the section, the proportion of old zircons increases and reaches a maximum (40%) in the Ordovician strata of Jordan. The major earliest Neoproterozoic and older age groups detected are 0.95–1.1, 1.8–1.9 and 2.65–2.7 Ga, among which the 0.95–1.1 Ga group is ubiquitous and makes up as much as 27% in the Ordovician of Jordan, indicating it is a prominent component of the detrital zircon age spectra of northeast Gondwana. The pattern of zircon ages obtained in the present work reflects progressive blanketing of the northern Arabian–Nubian Shield by Cambrian–Ordovician sediments and an increasing contribution from a more distal source, possibly south of the Arabian–Nubian Shield. The significant changes in the zircon age signal reflect many hundreds of kilometres of southward migration of the provenance.

Data on the first appearances of major animal groups with mineralized skeletons on the Siberian Platform and worldwide are revised and summarized herein with references to an improved carbon isotope stratigraphy and radiometric dating in order to reconstruct the Cambrian radiation (popularly known as the ‘Cambrian explosion’) with a higher precision and provide a basis for the definition of Cambrian Stages 2 to 4. The Lophotrochozoa and, probably, Chaetognatha were first among protostomians to achieve biomineralization during the Terreneuvian Epoch, mainly the Fortunian Age. Fast evolutionary radiation within the Lophotrochozoa was followed by radiation of the sclerotized and biomineralized Ecdysozoa during Stage 3. The first mineralized skeletons of the Deuterostomia, represented by echinoderms, appeared in the middle of Cambrian Stage 3. The fossil record of sponges and cnidarians suggests that they acquired biomineralized skeletons in the late Neoproterozoic, but diversification of both definite sponges and cnidarians was in parallel to that of bilaterians. The distribution of calcium carbonate skeletal mineralogies from the upper Ediacaran to lower Cambrian reflects fluctuations in the global ocean chemistry and shows that the Cambrian radiation occurred mainly during a time of aragonite and high-magnesium calcite seas.

This paper is a revision of the standard chronostratigraphy of the Ordovician of the historical type area in England and Wales. The revision is a response to the need for more precise definitions of series and stages, especially for practical international correlation. In some cases this has entailed moving horizons for Series bases away from those in the classical sections. The scheme will be used as the standard for a forthcoming revision of the Correlation Chart of the British Ordovician System. The Ordovician is divided into five series: Tremadoc, Arenig, Llanvirn, Caradoc and Ashgill. The Llanvirn is extended to include part of the classical Llandeilo Series, which is included within it as a stage. Where stage subdivisions of standard series have not yet been defined, as in the Tremadoc, they are proposed in this paper. However, Bancroft’s fine stadial divisions of the Caradoc, which have been criticized for their brevity and local utility, are combined into four new stages, which will have wider application. The former Caradoc subdivisions are retained as substages for the purposes of regional correlation.

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.

Defining the structural style of fold–thrust belts and understanding the controlling factors are necessary steps towards prediction of their long-term and short-term dynamics, including seismic hazard, and to assess their potential in terms of hydrocarbon exploration. While the thin-skinned structural style has long been a fashionable view for outer parts of orogens worldwide, a wealth of new geological and geophysical studies has pointed out that a description in terms of thick-skinned deformation is, in many cases, more appropriate. This paper aims at providing a review of what we know about basement-involved shortening in foreland fold–thrust belts on the basis of the examination of selected Cenozoic orogens. After describing how structural interpretations of fold–thrust belts have evolved through time, this paper addresses how and the extent to which basement tectonics influence their geometry and their kinematics, and emphasizes the key control exerted by lithosphere rheology, including structural and thermal inheritance, and local/regional boundary conditions on the occurrence of thick-skinned tectonics in the outer parts of orogens.

Using examples from the Gulf of Suez and southeastern France, the distribution of tension tectonic joints as well as shear tectonic joints in continuous profiles is shown to fit a Gamma distribution. The parameters of this distribution are determined using the maximum likelihood method. Apparent fit with negative exponential distribution in photointerpretation analysis results from lack of resolution. The average joint spacing is directly proportional to bed thickness; it decreases when the degree of rock consolidation increases.

Although the structures and textures of spilites and keratophyres are comparable to those of fresh lavas, recent work has established that they did not acquire their present mineralogy at the time of extrusion. Furthermore, the compositions of many analyzed samples of spilites and keratophyres are shown to lie outside a ‘spectrum’ of compositions of all comparable fresh igneous rocks. A later metamorphism has therefore been responsible for their formation and has commonly been accompanied by metasomatism. This possibility of later metasomatism must be appreciated before conclusions are drawn that are based upon analysis of rocks of a spilitic or keratophyric mineralogy. This applies to age-dating and to analytically based petrographic and petrogenetic conclusions.

Santorini volcanic field has had 12 major (1–10 km3 or more of magma), and numerous minor, explosive eruptions over the last ~ 200 ka. Deposits from these eruptions (Thera Pyroclastic Formation) are well exposed in caldera-wall successions up to 200 m thick. Each of the major eruptions began with a pumice-fall phase, and most culminated with emplacement of pyroclastic flows. Pyroclastic flows of at least six eruptions deposited proximal lag deposits exposed widely in the caldera wall. The lag deposits include coarse-grained lithic breccias (andesitic to rhyodacitic eruptions) and spatter agglomerates (andesitic eruptions only). Facies associations between lithic breccia, spatter agglomerate, and ignimbrite from the same eruption can be very complex. For some eruptions, lag deposits provide the only evidence for pyroclastic flows, because most of the ignimbrite is buried on the lower flanks of Santorini or under the sea. At least eight eruptions tapped compositionally heterogeneous magma chambers, producing deposits with a range of zoning patterns and compositional gaps. Three eruptions display a silicic–silicic + mafic–silicic zoning not previously reported. Four eruptions vented large volumes of dacitic or rhyodacitic pumice, and may account for 90% or more of all silicic magma discharged from Santorini. The Thera Pyroclastic Formation and coeval lavas record two major mafic-to-silicic cycles of Santorini volcanism. Each cycle commenced with explosive eruptions of andesite or dacite, accompanied by construction of composite shields and stratocones, and culminated in a pair of major dacitic or rhyodacitic eruptions. Sequences of scoria and ash deposits occur between most of the twelve major members and record repeated stratocone or shield construction following a large explosive eruption.

Volcanism at Santorini has focussed on a deep NE–SW basement fracture, which has acted as a pathway for magma ascent. At least four major explosive eruptions began at a vent complex on this fracture. Composite volcanoes constructed north of the fracture were dissected by at least three caldera-collapse events associated with the pyroclastic eruptions. Southern Santorini consists of pryoclastic ejecta draped over a pre-volcanic island and a ridge of early- to mid-Pleistocene volcanics. The southern half of the present-day caldera basin is a long-lived, essentially non-volcanic, depression, defined by topographic highs to the south and east, but deepened by subsidence associated with the main northern caldera complex, and is probably not a separate caldera.

Two suites of granitoids, the Late Jurassic (158 ± 3 Ma) Linglong suite and the Early Cretaceous (130–126 Ma) Guojialing suite, crop out in the northwestern Jiaodong Peninsula, eastern China. The Linglong suite is a monzogranite, comprising alkali feldspar, plagioclase, quartz and Fe-rich biotite. The Guojialing suite includes at least five plutonic bodies of both granodiorite and monzo-granite. The rocks are composed of plagioclase, alkali feldspar, quartz, Mg-rich amphibole and Mg-rich biotite. Both the Linglong and Guojialing suites have adakitic affinity. They are enriched in LREE with high La/Yb ratios and show positive Eu anomalies. The rocks are also enriched in LILE and depleted in HFSE with high Sr/Y ratios. The Linglong granite shows very uniform Sr–Nd isotopic compositions with initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios of 0.7119–0.7126 and εNd (T) values of −21.3 to −21.6, which are similar to those of the local Neoarchaean basement. The Guojialing suite has variable initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.7108–0.7120) and εNd (T) values (−10.8 to −17.2), which are distinct both from those of the Neoarchaean basement and from those of the local enriched lithospheric mantle inferred from the coeval mafic dykes in the studied area. Detailed petrological and geochemical data indicate that the Linglong suite was derived by partial melting of Neoarchaean metamorphic lower-crustal rocks at depth of > 50 km with a eclogite residue, whereas the Guojialing suite was formed by the reaction of delaminated eclogitic crust-derived melt with the upwelling asthenospheric mantle. The petrogenesis of these two contrasting adakitic granitoids suggests intensive lower-crustal delamination during Early Cretaceous times, following a crustal thickening process from the late stage of the Early Jurassic to early stage of the Late Jurassic with crustal thickness of < 32 km to > 50 km, respectively.

The fossiliferous section at Meishucun of Yunnan, China, is a candidate stratotype section for the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary. Early diagenetic dolomites and phosphorites have been sampled across the boundary interval here, and in the correlated section at Maidiping in Sichuanand Valiabad in Iran, for comparison of their carbon and oxygen isotopes. This is the first such study that is calibrated by biostratigraphy in the interval from the earliest (pre-Tommotian) skeletal fossils to trilobites. Although negative oxygen isotopes indicate a diagenetic signal in the Zhongyicun Member and basal Badaowan Member phosphorites, two carbon-isotope cycles are clearly present and can be correlated in dolomitic rocks between the two sections. The first appearance datum (FAD) of the earliest skeletal assemblage (zone I, Marker A), FAD of diverse micromolluscs (zone II, Marker B) and FAD of Chinese trilobites (zones IV, V) and Marker C appear at similar points on the carbon-isotope curve in the two Chinese sections. Integrated carbon-isotope and early skeletal fossil biostratigraphy is shown to have the potential to correlate further afield, with sections in Iran, as well as with India, Siberia, Morocco and Australia. We suggest that a distinctive positive excursion provides a global marker for the interval between Marker B and C in China and just below the Tommotian Stage of Siberia.

Thermochronological data reveal that the Late Cretaceous–Tertiary nappe pile of the Anatolide belt of western Turkey displays a two-stage cooling history. Three crustal segments differing in structure and cooling history have been identified. The Central Menderes metamorphic core complex represents an ‘inner’ axial segment of the Anatolide belt and exposes the lowest structural levels of the nappe pile, whereas the two ‘outer’ submassifs, the Gördes submassif to the north and the Çine submassif to the south, represent higher levels of the nappe pile. A regionally significant phase of cooling in the Late Oligocene and Early Miocene affected the outer two submassifs and the upper structural levels of the Central Menderes metamorphic core complex. In the northern part of the Gördes submassif, cooling was related to top-to-the-NNE movement on the Simav detachment, as the apatite fission-track ages show a northward-younging trend in the direction of movement on this detachment. In the Çine submassif, relatively rapid cooling in Late Oligocene and Early Miocene times may have been related to top-to-the-S extensional reactivation of the basal thrust of the overlying Lycian nappes. The second phase of cooling in the Anatolide belt is related to Pliocene to Recent extension resulting in the formation of the Central Menderes metamorphic core complex in the inner part of the Anatolide belt. Core-complex development caused the formation of supra-detachment graben, which document the ongoing separation of the Central Menderes metamorphic core complex from the outer submassifs.