The lithostratigraphic characteristics of the iconic Blue Lias Formation of southern Britain are influenced by sedimentation rates and stratigraphic gaps. Evidence for regular sedimentary cycles is reassessed using logs of magnetic susceptibility from four sites as an inverse proxy for carbonate content. Standard spectral analysis, including allowing for false discovery rates, demonstrates several scales of regular cyclicity in depth. Bayesian probability spectra provide independent confirmation of at least one scale of regular cyclicity at all sites. The frequency ratios between the different scales of cyclicity are consistent with astronomical forcing of climate at the periods of the short eccentricity, obliquity and precession cycles. Using local tuned time scales, 62 ammonite biohorizons have minimum durations of 0.7 to 276 ka, with 94% of them <41 ka. The duration of the Hettangian Stage is ≥2.9 Ma according to data from the West Somerset and Devon/Dorset coasts individually, increasing to ≥3.7 Ma when combined with data from Glamorgan and Warwickshire. A composite time scale, constructed using the tuned time scales plus correlated biohorizon limits treated as time lines, allows for the integration of local stratigraphic gaps. This approach yields an improved duration for the Hettangian Stage of ≥4.1 Ma, a figure that is about twice that suggested in recent time scales.

Cyclostratigraphic analysis of the Pliocene Zújar section (Guadix-Baza Basin, southeastern Spain) has enabled the recognition of a number of climatically forced cycles reflecting alternating dry and wet periods. Peaks of aridity are recorded at ca. 3.95, 3.55, 3.2, 2.8, and 1.8 myr B.P. The first dry period at about 4.0 myr B.P. corresponds to the early Ruscinian Mammal age, while the second arid interval at about 3.6 myr B.P. corresponds to the establishment of the Mediterranean double seasonality. The significant mammal turnover between the late Ruscinian and early Villanyian stages is placed between chron 2An.2n and the very base of chron 2An.1n, coincident with the dry phase recognized at about 3.2 myr B.P. The fourth aridity maximum at 2.8 myr B.P. roughly coincides with the Equus event in western Europe and is probably related to the beginning of the glacial–interglacial dynamics in the Northern Hemisphere. Finally, the last dry peak at about 1.8 myr B.P. is probably related to the set of mammalian events characterizing the transition from the late Pliocene faunas to those of the early Pleistocene.

Integrated sedimentological and micropaleontological (foraminifera, ostracods, pollens) investigations of a 173-m-long continuous core in the subsurface of the SE Po Plain reveal a cyclic facies distribution of continental to shallow-marine deposits. Radiometric and pollen data enable an age attribution of the study units to the late Middle Pleistocene–Holocene. Glacioeustasy appears to have exerted a major control on facies development, as documented by the close relationships between cyclic lithofacies patterns and the curves of eustatic fluctuation. Particularly, relative sea-level falls and lowstand phases were characterized by the development of alluvial sedimentation, whereas major transgressive pulses and subsequent highstands are reflected by abrupt shifts to paralic and shallow-marine deposits. This facies architecture is paralleled by a distinctive pollen distribution, reflecting the alternation of a glacial type of vegetation, dominated by Pinus and nonarboreal pollen types, with interglacial mixed deciduous broad-leaved forests.

This study reports on a ~ 150 m thick macrofossil-barren sequence of siliciclastic sediments from a Burdigalian age (Early Miocene) freshwater lake. The lake was located within an incipient rift system of the Most Basin in the Ohře (Eger) Graben, which was part of the European Cenozoic Rift System, and had an original area of ≈ 1000 km2. Sediments from the HK591 core that cover the entire thickness of the lake deposits and some of the adjacent stratigraphic units were analysed by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (a proxy for element composition) and magnetic polarity measurement. The element proxies were subjected to frequency analysis, which provided estimated sedimentation rates, and allowed for sediment dating by magnetostratigraphy and orbital tuning of the age model. Based on the resulting age model and the known biostratigraphy, the lake was present between 17.4 and 16.6 Ma, which includes the onset of the Miocene Climatic Optimum in the latest Early Miocene. The identification of orbital forcing (precession, obliquity and short eccentricity cycles) confirms the stability of the sedimentary environment of the perennial lake in an underfilled basin. The dating allowed the sediment record to be interpreted in the context of the current knowledge of the European climate during that period. The stability of the sedimentary environment confirms that precipitation was relatively stable over the period recorded by the sediments.

The duration of polarity Chron C31r is estimated with a cyclostratigraphic approach. Two sites are investigated: ODP Site 762 (Indian Ocean) and the Contessa Highway section (Gubbio, Italy). Cyclostratigraphic analysis is performed on greyscale variations (Site 762) and magnetic susceptibility variations (Contessa section). Both sites reveal an astronomical control of the sedimentation, highlighted by the identification of all the orbital periodicities. Cyclostratigraphic signals are tuned on 405 ka eccentricity cycles extracted from the La04 astronomical solution. In both sites, cycle counting gives an estimate of the duration of polarity Chron C31r of about 2.09 ± 0.03 Ma.

An integrated bio-, magneto- and cyclostratigraphic study of the Ypresian/Lutetian (Early/Middle Eocene) transition along the Otsakar section resulted in the identification of the C22n/C21r chron boundary and of the calcareous nannofossil CP12a/b zonal boundary; the latter is the main correlation criterion of the Lutetian Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) recently defined at Gorrondatxe (Basque Country). By counting precession-related mudstone–marl couplets of 21 ka, the time lapse between both events was calculated to be 819 ka. This suggests that the age of the CP12a/b boundary, and hence that of the Early/Middle Eocene boundary, is 47.76 Ma, 250 ka younger than previously thought. This age agrees with, and is supported by, estimates from Gorrondatxe based on the time lapse between the Lutetian GSSP and the C21r/C21n boundary. The duration of Chron C21r is estimated at 1.326 Ma. Given that the base of the Eocene is dated at 55.8 Ma, the duration of the Early Eocene is 8 Ma, 0.8 Ma longer than in current time scales. The Otsakar results further show that the bases of planktonic foraminiferal zones E8 and P10 are younger than the CP12a/b boundary. The first occurrence of Turborotalia frontosa, being approximately 550 ka older that the CP12a/b boundary, is the planktonic foraminiferal event that lies closest to the Early/Middle Eocene boundary. The larger foraminiferal SBZ12/13 boundary is located close to the CP12a/b boundary and correlates with Chron C21r, not with the C22n/C21r boundary.

The Newark-APTS established a high-resolution framework for the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. Palaeomagnetic polarity correlations to marine sections show that stage-level correlations of continental sequences were off by as much as 10 million years. New U–Pb ages show the new correlations and the Newark basin astrochronology to be accurate. Correlation of Newark-APTS to the Chinle Formation/Dockum Group, Glen Canyon Group, Fleming Fjord Formation and Ischigualasto Formation led to the following conclusions: (1) there are no unequivocal Carnian-age dinosaurs; (2) the Norian Age was characterised by a slowly increasing saurischian diversity but no unequivocal ornithischians; (3) there was profound Norian and Rhaetian continental provinciality; (4) the classic Chinle-, Germanic- and Los Colorados-type assemblages may have persisted to the close of the Rhaetian; (5) the distinct genus-level biotic transition traditionally correlated with the marine Carnian–Norian is in fact mid-Norian in age and within published error of the Manicouagan impact; (6) the end-Triassic marine and continental extinctions as seen in eastern North America were contemporaneous; and (7) compared to Triassic communities, Hettangian and Sinemurian age terrestrial communities were nearly globally homogenous and of low diversity. Consequently, the complex emerging picture of dinosaur diversification demands biostratigraphically-independent geochronologies in each of the faunally-important regions.