We use detrital provenance data from Cambrian sandstones to examine whether the Yangtze and Cathaysia blocks in South China were separated by an ocean during the Cambrian period. Zircons from the Cambrian sandstones exhibit a dominant ~ 800 Ma age peak in the central Yangtze Block, being sourced from the western Yangtze Block, whereas a ~ 980 Ma peak dominates in the northwestern Cathaysia Block, being sourced from an exotic continent once connected to Cathaysia. A mixed provenance with both age peaks is found in Cambrian sandstones from the southeastern Yangtze Block, indicating that detritus can travel from the Cathaysia Block to the Yangtze Block, and therefore arguing against the existence of a broad Cambrian ocean.

Burlingia balangensis sp. nov. from the lower Cambrian of South China represents the earliest species of this genus, and suggests that the genus may have originated in South China. A revision of the genus shows that B. primitiva and B. obscura can be used in order to indentify the base of the Cambrian Stage 5 when other trilobites are absent because their last appearance datum (LAD) coincides with the first appearance datum (FAD) of Oryctocephalus indicus. Available palaeogeographic and palaeoclimatic models suggest five major palaeocurrents during Cambrian times which could control the migration patterns of the Burlingia clade from South China to Baltica.

Detailed petrographic and geochemical studies conducted on zircons from the Lys-Caillaouas pluton reveal their igneous and metamorphic affinities. The igneous zircons constrain the emplacement of the pluton to 300±2 Ma. By contrast, the metamorphic zircons yield an older age of 307±3 Ma, which probably dates the thermal peak of the HT/LP Variscan metamorphism. Therefore, a short time lag of c. 7 Ma emerges between the metamorphic climax and emplacement of the pluton in the Axial Zone (Pyrenees).

The type material of Agraulos antiquus Sdzuy, 1961 from the La Herrería Formation, northern Spain, is revised together with additional material and included in the new genus Lunagraulos. The stratigraphical range of Lunagraulos antiquus (Sdzuy, 1961) – occurring below that of the trilobite species of the genera Lunolenus, Metadoxides and Dolerolenus in the type locality of Los Barrios de Luna in the province of León, northern Spain – and the accompanying ichnofossil assemblage demonstrate an Ovetian age (lower part of Cambrian Stage 3, currently being discussed by the International Subcommission on Cambrian Stratigraphy) for this species. Moreover, the trilobite Lunagraulos tamamensis n. gen. n. sp. is found in the Tamames Sandstone near the village of La Rinconada in the province of Salamanca, central Spain. The biostratigraphical position of this new taxon and its accompanying ichnoassemblage is also analysed and assigned to the lowermost Ovetian Stage. The genus Lunagraulos is therefore the oldest agraulid found in the fossil record. The exceptional presence of Lunagraulos in a marine coarse siliciclastic succession – a facies rather typical for the ichnofossils Cruziana and Rusophycus, some of the oldest signs of trilobite activity – suggests that first trilobite representatives may have inhabited high- to middle-energy, marine environments. This hypothesis may also explain both the taxonomic and biostratigraphic heterogeneity of the first trilobite genera appearing across the world, due to preservation problems in this type of facies. Comparison of the Lunagraulos biostratigraphy with other coeval Spanish fossil assemblages allows us to propose its intercontinental correlation with the oldest records of currently known trilobites.

Two tuffs in the Lower Cretaceous Agrio Formation, Neuquén Basin, provided U–Pb zircon radioisotopic ages of 129.09±0.16 Ma and 127.42±0.15 Ma. Both horizons are well constrained biostratigraphically by ammonites and nannofossils and can be correlated with the ‘standard’ sequence of the Mediterranean Province. The lower horizon is very close to the base of the Upper Hauterivian and the upper horizon to the Hauterivian/Barremian boundary, indicating that the former lies at c. 129.5 Ma and the latter at c. 127 Ma. These new radioisotopic ages fill a gap of over 8 million years in the numerical calibration of the current global Early Cretaceous geological time scale.

The recently discovered Agoudal impact site in Morocco is a small, eroded impact structure with well-developed shatter cones. A scanning electron microscopic study of a shatter cone surface has revealed the presence of schreibersite – a phosphide very rare on Earth but common in iron meteorites – and Fe–Ni oxides. This is the first reported evidence for primary meteoritic matter adherent to shatter cones and suggests that the Agoudal crater was formed by the impact of an iron meteorite, probably the Agoudal IIAB iron. Shatter cones from other terrestrial impact structures might also hold valuable information about the nature of the impacting projectiles.

We conducted isotope–geochemical studies of the Upper Devonian of the Rudny Altai. Whole-rock carbon isotope analyses of the studied section represented by carbonate fore-reef facies reveal a negative excursion at the base of punctata Zone. When compared to conodont biofacies turnovers and the Upper Devonian events chart, the new data have demonstrated a synchronism between the negative excursion and the coeval decline in conodont biodiversity corresponding to the Middlesex anoxic event of the Frasnian Stage of the Upper Devonian.

This paper describes a newly observed phenomenon, a rare form of lamina protecting petroglyphs from weathering, and it attempts an explanation of such features. These laminae are not precipitates but represent the floors of the original cupules that have become more resistant to erosion through conversion to tectonite. The process involves crystallization of the syntaxial quartz overgrowths on quartz grains that constitute the cement component of quartzite and silica-rich schist. It is attributed to the cumulative application of kinetic energy that derives from the tens of thousands of hammerstone blows that produced the cupule. The tribological process results in products similar to those formed in ductile shear zones when sandstone has been subjected to great kinetic stresses. In the cupules reported here, the re-metamorphosed lamina preserves their original surface and prevents the erosion of the protolith (parent rock) concealed by the modified layer. The thickness of the layer is a function of the cumulative amount of energy applied to the rock's cement, and the process of alteration is defined as ‘kinetic energy metamorphosis’.

Various uplift markers suggest asymmetrical uplift of Tenerife Island, with stable conditions in the north but significant uplift of up to 45 m in the south over the past ~42 ka. Fossil shells in beach deposits uplifted by 7.5–9 m were 14C-dated at a Holocene age of 2460±35 bp (1σ). This confirms earlier results and documents very young, and probably still ongoing, uplift of southern Tenerife potentially caused by ascending magma. This underlines that southern Tenerife is probably undergoing a further cycle of volcanic activity that started ~95 ka ago.

The Middle Ordovician Llanfallteg Formation has yielded remains of soft-bodied organisms previously known only from Cambrian Burgess Shale-type deposits. A new arthropod Etania howellsorum gen. et sp. nov. is described here, characterized by a semi-circular cephalon, clusters of spinose endites on the endopod and exopods with ovoid distal lobes. These characters are consistent with xenopod affinities, a clade otherwise known exclusively from the Cambrian Period. The discovery of E. howellsorum demonstrates that a number of Burgess Shale-type taxa, including xenopods, survived past the Cambrian Period (albeit within a restricted environment) and may have been outcompeted during the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE).

High-resolution SIMS U–Pb dating of metamorphic zircons of the TTG gneisses, gneissic granitoid and amphibolites of the Lushan terrane, Taihua metamorphic complex, suggests that the metamorphism had taken place at least as early as ~1.96–1.86 Ga. These new dates, along with reference data, demonstrate that the southern and middle terranes of the Trans-North China Orogen had been involved in the continent–continent collision between the Western Block and the Eastern Block of the North China Craton. This orogenic process started as early as 1.96 Ga and lasted as late as 1.80 Ga.

We report the occurrence of organically preserved microfossils from the subsurface Ediacaran strata overlying the East European Platform in Poland, in the form of sclerites and cuticle fragments of larger organisms. They are morphologically similar to those known from Cambrian strata and associated with various metazoan fossils of recognized phyla. The Ediacaran age of the microfossils is evident from the stratigraphic position below the base of the Cambrian System and above the isotopically dated tuff layers at c. 551±4Ma. Within this strata interval, other characteristic Ediacaran microorganisms co-occur such as cyanobacteria, vendotaenids, microalgae, Ceratophyton, Valkyria and macroscopic annelidan Sabellidites. The recent contributions of organic sclerites in revealing the scope of the Cambrian explosion are therefore also potentially extendable back to the Ediacaran Period when animals first appear in the fossil record.

The robust spines and sclerites of the early to middle Cambrian ‘mollusc’ Wiwaxia are ubiquitous in suitably preserved deposits, but are strikingly absent from the Chengjiang Lagerstätte (Cambrian Stage 3, Yunnan Province, SW China). Here we provide the first record of Wiwaxia sclerites from this rich deposit, extending the record of the genus to the earliest Cambrian Series 2. This reinforces the cosmopolitan distribution of this iconic Cambrian lophotrochozoan and demonstrates the strong faunal continuity that unites distant Cambrian Lagerstätten.

First, I would like to congratulate Wang et al. (2014) for their important work on the dating of the Panxian fauna, a Triassic fossil Lagerstätte that has produced many exquisitely preserved marine reptiles (Motani et al. 2008) and that marks the full recovery of the marine ecosystem (Jiang et al. 2009) following the Permian–Triassic marine mass extinction (PTME). Papers by Wang et al. (2014) and alike are especially welcomed by vertebrate palaeontologists since they provide precise dating results for some of the most important vertebrate fossils in the world, such as the bizarre protorosaur Dinocephalosaurus orientalis (Li, Rieppel & LaBarbera, 2004) and the earliest marine archosaur Qianosuchus mixtus (Li et al. 2006). This related topic is also interesting because of the very recent debate about the timing of recovery from the PTME, the largest biodiversity crash during the Phanerozoic, from the predators’ perspective (Chen & Benton, 2012; Scheyer et al. 2014).

Material previously referred to as Cassubia infercambriensis was re-examined and found to represent a composite fossil of a Peytoia-like anomalocaridid frontal appendage and an arthropod of uncertain affinities comparable to some bivalved arthropod taxa. The frontal appendage is referred to the genus Peytoia based on the presence of elongated ventral spines bearing a single row of auxiliary spines. As well as representing the oldest example of an anomalocaridid in the fossil record (Series 2, Stage 3), Peytoia infercambriensis is also the only record of this group from the East European Craton, therefore extending both the temporal and geographic range of the anomalocaridid family Hurdiidae.

We thank Liu Jun for his comment on our recent paper (Wang et al. 2014) and are grateful for his calling our attention to this apparent contradiction, and we welcome the opportunity to reply. Based on the sensitive high-resolution ion microscope (SHRIMP) U–Pb zircon age for a volcanic tuff bed within the upper part of the Guanling Formation, we suggested in our study that the age of the fossil horizon of the Panxian fauna is 244 ± 1.3 Ma, which is 14 Ma earlier than the previously estimated age that Li, Rieppel & LaBarbera (2004) published in Science. However, Liu Jun argued that this conclusion is confused, that there is no 14 Ma difference and that there is agreement between the biostratigraphic data and the new radiometric age.