In addition to meeting various geophysical requirements, an ultrabasic upper mantle must provide a source both for olivine nodules and for the range of “primary” basaltic types, i.e. those which are apparently uncontaminated and undifferentiated. Potassium abundances and other considerations suggest that olivine nodules represent upper mantle which has previously yielded basalt by partial fusion but is now “barren”, principally because of potassium depletion, and is unable to yield more. The possible range of potassium contents of “parent” upper mantle (still able to yield basalt) is considered and it is argued that at any concentration within this range, the potassium is not distributed between the main mantle phases as a trace component but is contained largely within a potassium-rich minor phase. It is shown that this phase is probably an amphibole and may make up between 2 and 20 wt. per cent of parent upper mantle. In addition to the isochemical phase changes to be expected with increasing depth, a transition is proposed from an upper zone of amphibole-free (barren) upper mantle to a lower zone of amphibole-bearing (parent) upper mantle. The petrogenetic and geophysical implications of such a model are discussed; in particular it provides a possible explanation for the Gutenberg low-velocity zone.

Thrombolite and stromatolite reefs occur at several stratigraphic levels within the terminal Proterozoic Nama Group (c. 550–543 Ma) of central and southern Namibia. The reefs form integral parts of several carbonate platforms within the Nama Group, including the Kuibis platform of the northern Nama Basin (Zaris subbasin), and Huns platform (Witputs subbasin) of the southern Nama Basin. The reefs are composed of both thrombolites and stromatolites that form laterally continuous biostromes, isolated patch reefs, and isolated pinnacle reefs ranging in scale from a metre to several kilometres in width. In the majority of cases, the reefs occur stratigraphically as an integral facies within the transgressive systems tracts of sequences making up the Kuibis and Huns platforms. This suggests that a regime of increasing accommodation was required to form well-developed reefs, though reefs also occur sporadically in highstand systems tract settings. Within a given transgressive systems tract, a regime of increasing accommodation through time favours the transition from sheet-like biostromal geometries to more isolated patch and pinnacle biohermal geometries. Similarly, increasing accommodation in space, such as a transect down depositional dip, shows a similar transition from more sheet-like geometries in updip positions to more isolated geometries in downdip positions. Reefal facies consist of thrombolitic domes, columns and mounds with well-developed internal clotted textures, in addition to stromatolitic domes, columns and mounds, with crudely to moderately well-developed internal lamination. Stromatolites are better developed in conditions of relatively low accommodation, and updip locations, under conditions of higher current velocities and greater sediment influx. Thrombolites are better developed in conditions of relatively high accommodation and low sediment influx. Both types of microbialites are intimately associated with the first calcifying metazoan organisms, which may have attached themselves to the sediment surface or otherwise lived within sheltered depressions within the rough topography created by ecologically complex mats. The appearance of thrombolitic textures during terminal Proterozoic time is consistent with colonization of cyanobacterial mats by higher algae and metazoans, which would have been an important process in generating clotted textures. Fabrics in the Nama thrombolites are well preserved and show evidence of thrombolitic mesoclots being overgrown by fibrous marine carbonate, interpreted as former aragonite. This was followed by emplacement of geopetal micrite fills, and precipitation of dolomite as an isopachous rim cement, followed by occlusion of remaining porosity by blocky calcite spar.

Four sections from the mid-Atdabanian to lowest Toyonian (middle Cambrian) along the Lena River of Siberia were sampled for carbon isotope stratigraphy. These show a mainly heavy but highly oscillatory δ13C signature for the Atdabanian to mid-Botomian interval, coincident with the major phase of invertebrate innovation. A prolonged interval of negative δ13C followed until late Toyonian times, coincident with Botomian-Toyonian mass extinctions. Eleven carbon isotope cycles are identified through the lower Cambrian, which should now be tested for their utility in global correlation and relationship to bioevents in the Cambrian explosion.

Following a bricf survey of previous literature concerning microfossils of the genera Tasmanites Newton 1875 and Leiosphaeridia Eisenack 1958 (generally known as leiospheres), two present day green algae are described (Pachysphaera pelagica Ostenfeld 1899 and Halosphaera minor Ostenfeld 1899). These organisms are compared with members of the fossil genera reviewed above and on the basis of this comparison it is concluded that the biological affinities of Tasmanites and some species of Leiosphaeridia lie with the Chlorophyceae. A possible mode of life is suggested for the fossils and the systematic position of the genera Tasmanites and Leiosphaeridia is reviewed but not altered.

The Qinling–Dabie orogen in central China is one of the major orogenic belts in East Asia. In the eastern Dabie–Sulu region, mafic lamprophyres show the enriched signatures of old sub-continental lithospheric mantle. However, little is known about the mafic igneous rocks and their lithospheric mantle sources in the western Qinling Range. New 40Ar–39Ar age dating, major- and trace-element data, and isotopic analyses of Qinling lamprophyres reveal their differences from the Dabie Sulu lamprophyres. Biotite 40Ar–39Ar dating yielded a plateau age of 219±2 Ma, identical to the ages of rapakivi-textured granitoids in the area. The association of lamprophyre dykes and rapakivi-textured granitoids indicates that the Qinling region was a post-collisional setting at c. 220 Ma. The Qinling lamprophyres are calc-alkaline, and rich in large ion lithophile elements (e.g. Ba, K), but depleted in Nb, Ta and Ti. They show highly fractionated REE patterns with LaN>100 and HREE <10 times chondrite abundances. εNd (219 Ma) values range from −0.5 to −3.3 and initial Sr isotope values from 0.7036 to 0.7058. These features suggest generation of the lamprophyre by partial melting of a metasomatized, garnet peridotite mantle source. The Qinling lamprophyres are distinct from the Dabie–Sulu lamprophyres in emplacement age (c. 135 Ma for Dabie–Sulu) and isotopic composition, suggesting that the nature of the lithospheric mantle and geodynamic evolution of the Qinling region contrasts with that of the Dabie–Sulu region.

New potassium-argon age determinations are presented for rocks ranging in age from Lewisian to Tertiary. A late-Caledonian metamorphic event at about 422 million years is very important in the Highlands and the relationship of this to previous metamorphisms is discussed. Newer Granite emplacement took place about 400 million years ago and the Moine thrust movement also took place at about this date. Lower Carboniferous basalts yield, by whole rock methods, ages compatible with the time scales of Kulp (1960) and Holmes (1959). Volcanic activity in Mull is confirmed as Palaeocene or Eocene in age.

The lava domes in the northwestern (Cuma), northern (Punta Marmolite) and central (Accademia) parts of the Phlegrean Fields are the subject of this study. The Cuma and Punta Marmolite trachyphonolitic lava domes are among the oldest Phlegrean products cropping out. The Cuma rocks have an agpaitic groundmass, with early alkali feldspar, Fe-rich clinopyroxene, Fe-edenite and sodalite and late rosenbuschite, fluorite, baddeleyite, pyrochlore, britholite, monazite, aegirine (often Zr-rich) and exceptionally Fe–Mn-rich olivine. The bulk-rock compositions at Cuma have some of the highest concentrations of Zn, Mn, Zr, Nb, Th, U and lanthanides among the Phlegrean Fields rocks, and some of the lowest MgO, P2O5, Sr, Eu and Ba. The Punta Marmolite dome is chemically less evolved, and lacks characteristic agpaitic minerals, but features alkali feldspar, sodalite, nepheline and relatively Na-poor, Fe-rich hedenbergite, with rare Ca-rich plagioclase xenocryst cores. The Accademia dome, belonging to the recent activity, is latitic to trachytic in composition, has highly forsteritic olivine (with chromiferous spinel inclusions), calcic plagioclase and Mg-rich diopside (± phlogopite) xenocrysts in an evolved host rock (with phenocrysts and microlites of alkali feldspar, Fe-rich clinopyroxene, Fe-rich amphibole, magnetite, Fe-rich olivine and accessory baddeleyite, zirconolite and fluorite). There is clear evidence of open-system magma crystallization in the form of interaction between a crystallizing, primitive shoshonitic basalt in a reservoir already filled by rather evolved trachytic magma. The magmatic evolution towards the evolved compositions is dominated by crystallization of more and more Na-rich alkali feldspar in a Cl-, F-rich and relatively H2O-poor environment. Input of mafic magma is evident in many trachytic eruptions of the Phlegrean Fields and even in the products of the Campanian Ignimbrite, but eruptions having mineral assemblages rich in xenocryst phases as well as eruptions virtually free of mafic magma input are also frequently observed throughout the history. This suggests a variable pattern of open- and closed-system crystallization, which may or may not be linked to explosive activity, and that can be caused by intermittent supply of basaltic magma from depth.

More than ten Triassic syenite plutons are revealed to be distributed in North Korea along the boundary to South Korea. The Tokdal Complex is one of these but is unique in its incorporation of early pyroxenite cumulate in the clinopyroxene/amphibole/biotite/nepheline-bearing syenite main body. A SHRIMP U–Pb zircon age of 224 ± 4 Ma was obtained from a biotite syenite sample. Clinopyroxene in pyroxenite is zoned, with either phlogopite and apatite inclusion or ilmenite and magnetite exsolution, and may have resulted from crystallization at high pressure in an active continental margin arc environment followed by ascent and decompression. The pyroxenite and syenite are enriched in light REE and LILE, but strongly depleted in HFSE, with 87Sr/86Srt values of ~0.7115 and ϵNdt values of −14 to −20 (t = 224 Ma). The Tokdal Complex could have originated from an enriched lithospheric mantle and undergone assimilation of juvenile materials during differentiation. It indicates an extension of post-collisional magmatism in the Sino-Korean craton. This complex along with many other Triassic plutons in the Sino-Korean craton together constitute three syenite belts along the northern, southern and eastern margins of the craton, possibly resulting in its final configuration in eastern Asia.

The Late Proterozoic Dokhan volcanic suite (620 Ma) of the northern Nubian shield is the product of Late Pan-African volcanism. The suite covers the entire spectrum from basalt to high-silica rhyolite and occurs as two units: a dark-coloured unit containing basalt-andesite-dacite, and a light-coloured unit encompassing dacite-rhyodacite-rhyolite. The latter unit is made up largely of ash flow tuffs and ign-imbrites that are locally interstratified with basalt and andesite lava flows. The suite forms a continuum in composition with a wide range of Si02 (48–77 wt%), CaO (0.1–8.9 wt%), Sr (81–906 ppm), Zr (85–340 ppm) as well as most other elements, and is moderately enriched in incompatible elements, including rare earth elements (REE). The suite exhibits fractionated, subparallel REE patterns that are similar overall to Andean andesites and ignimbrites. Well-defined major and trace element trends and fractionated REE profiles are consistent with a fractionated basalt to rhyolite calc-alkaline magma series. It is a typical calc-alka-line orogenic complex and exhibits mineralogical-geochemical traits of arc-related volcanism. The suite neither resembles products of extensional nor transitional tectonic regimes as previously thought, but was produced in a subduction-related tectonic environment. The mafic nature of the least-evolved rocks of the suite, along with its relatively low initial 87Sr/86Sr ratio (0.7039) are considered to indicate a mantle source. A mantle-derived basaltic magma fractionated, with amphibole and plagioclase dominating the fractionating assemblage, to produce the more felsic varieties, as suggested by major and trace element fractionation modelling.

Small isolated masses of highly olivine-rich lavas within a dominantly basaltic series of pillowed flows have been found in the northern foothills of the Troodos Igneous Massif. The rock is characterized by abundant phyric olivine usually set in a glassy, basaltic groundmass. Both intrusive and extrusive varieties of the rock have been found. It is suggested that the rock originated as a melt, possibly from the Troodos ultrabasic complex. Comparison is made with the serpentine lavas of Turkey.

Structural evidence from the Kalak Nappe Complex suggests the operation of layer parallel shearing stresses during the translation of the nappes. A simple shear model invoking irregular areas of high cohesion within individual layer boundaries is used to explain the development of both intra-folial, cylindrical and non-cylindrical folds and a regular zone of syn-folding blasto-mylonite at the base of the nappe(s). Fold hinges that are initially developed parallel to the Y axis of the strain ellipsoid during layer parallel shearing may be rotated towards the X direction as a result of large strains concentrated at points of high cohesion within the layering boundaries.

The 1988–1990 eruption of Lonquimay Volcano, Chile (38°S) formed a 10.2 km long andesite lava with a volume of 0.23 km3 over a period of 13 months. The lava extrusion rate decreased with time as chamber pressure and vent dimensions decreased. The velocity of the flow front decreased exponentially with distance from vent as a consequence of cooling and the increase of apparent viscosity at the flow front. The lava developed a central channel which decreased in width and depth with time. Three prominent lava levées were formed on each margin and resulted from abandonment as the channel decreased in width as a result of a rapid decrease of flow rate over the first 100 days of activity. A fourth major levée developed in February, during a brief period of flow rate increase down the main channel, but its walls were gradually exposed as the lava depth again decreased due to declining flow rate. The structure of lava levées depended on their age and longevity of the flow in the adjacent channel. Initial levées were formed in the first few days as the lava spread laterally and then retreated, leaving levées of massive lava. More mature rubble levées were formed during the next month by the lava pushing and then shearing aa and blocky breccia which formed on the cooling flow margin. Fragmentation and abrasion formed a characteristic zonation in the levées. A basal zone consists of very poorly sorted matrix-rich breccia with very rounded vesicular clasts and bimodal grain size distribution. The basal breccia zone strongly resembles block and ash flow deposits. This zone passes up into a zone of clast-supported clinker breccia which becomes increasingly matrix-poor and coarser with clasts becoming more angular upwards. The crest of the levée is composed of large (10–100 cm) angular to subangular blocks with no matrix. The zoned levées form after the active lava channel suddenly narrows. Lava depth initially increases and breccias are deposited on the channel margins and acquire the zoned structure by progressive shearing and accretion of clinkery aa breccia. The lava level then drops exposing the steep inner scarp of a levée. The most mature levée type formed in a long-lived channel over several months. The outer wall of the levée consists of zoned breccia, but the inner wall consists of a massive curving wall of strongly foliated lava with well-developed horizontal striations and ductile Reidel shears. The massive foliated facies is a consequence of prolonged flow which coats strongly sheared lava onto the inner levée wall. Scanning electron microscopy shows that the aa clinker clasts and foliated lava from the levée walls form at low melt fractions (⋚ 15%). In the last three months of the eruption the flow front ceased to advance but thickened as lava drained from proximal regions and intruded into the interior of the distal lava. The last stages of lava movement were characterized by updoming in the central channel. A lava surface feature, named here ‘Armadillo structure’, was formed by deformation of the cooler but still ductile lava crust. The deformation caused by underflow produced Reidel shears dipping upstream and doming of the lava due to rotation of the shear planes. The study demonstrates that lava morphology, structure and texture are strongly influenced by variations of effusion rate, local flow rate, channel topography and thermal maturity of the lava, which is reflected in downstream changes in viscosity.

Throughout the high Arctic, from northern Canada (Pearya) to eastern Greenland, Svalbard, Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Taimyr and Severnaya Zemlya and, at lower Arctic latitudes, in the Urals and the Scandinavian Caledonides, there is evidence of the Grenville–Sveconorwegian Orogen. The latest orogenic phase (c. 950 Ma) is well exposed in the Arctic, but only minor Mesoproterozoic fragments of this orogen occur on land. However, detrital zircons in Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic successions provide unambiguous Mesoproterozoic to earliest Neoproterozoic (c. 950 Ma) signatures. This evidence strongly suggests that the Grenville–Sveconorwegian Orogen continues northwards from type areas in southeastern Canada and southwestern Scandinavia, via the North Atlantic margins to the high Arctic continental shelves. The widespread distribution of late Mesoproterozoic detrital zircons far to the north of the Grenville–Sveconorwegian type areas is usually explained in terms of long-distance transport (thousands of kilometres) of either sediments by river systems from source to sink, or of slices of lithosphere (terranes) moved on major transcurrent faults. Both of these interpretations involve much greater complexity than the hypothesis favoured here, the former involving recycling of the zircons from the strata of initial deposition into those of their final residence and the latter requiring a diversity of microcontinents. Neither explains either the fragmentary evidence for the presence of Grenville–Sveconorwegian terranes in the high Arctic, or the composition of the basement of the continental shelves. The presence of the Grenville–Sveconorwegian Orogen in the Arctic, mainly within the hinterland and margins of the Caledonides and Timanides, has profound implications not only for the reconstructions of the Rodinia supercontinent in early Neoproterozoic time, but also the origin of these Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic mountain belts.

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.

1. The Loch Awe Nappe succession was correctly stated in 1922.

2. The Iltay Nappe succession was correctly stated in 1922.

3. The Ballappel Foundation succession was wrongly stated in 1922.

4. The recumbent-fold structure of the Ballachulish district is due to rotation of middle limbs by drag from above or from below.

5. Graded bedding is as important as current bedding in marking a facies group among sandstones. It often indicates accumulation in rather deep water, to which sandy material has penetrated, perhaps as a result of seaquakes.

Archaean sedimentary and volcanic successions in the Lalla Rookh Basin and c. 2950 Ma old Whim Creek Belt in the Pilbara Block, Western Australia, were deposited in basins with roughly the same configuration as their present outcrop. Basins were fault-bounded and developed in an ensialic setting, overlying older (3500 to 3300 Ma old); deformed and metamorphosed supracrustal rocks and granitoids. The basin margin faults are now part of a pattern of strike–slip faults which were active during the later stages of regional batholith emplacement. In both cases, structural patterns and style of basin filling are similar to younger basins related to strike–slip faulting. The Lalla Rookh Basin was dominated by coarse clastic sedimentation, comprising alluvial–fan, braided–stream, fan–delta and lacustrine facies. The Whim Creek Belt contains bimodal volcanics and clastic sediments, which comprise alluvial, subaqueous fanglomerate, submarine-fan and basinal facies. Regional strike–slip faulting and the development of the Lalla Rookh Basin and Whim Creek Belt, in response to externally imposed deformation, records an important step in the cratonization of the Pilbara Block. Late Archaean sedimentary basins, dominated by coarse clastic facies and situated adjacent to major strike–slip faults, in other cratons may have a similar origin.

Conjugate shear fold systems are often developed when brittle laminated rocks are subjected to stress. These structures relationship of the principal axes of stress to the surface being folded. Within first order shear zones conjugate second order shear folds may be developed as a result of reorientation of the stress axes in these zones.

The axes of both first and second order conjugate shear folds may form at any angle to the principal stress axes and to the direction of movement within the shear zones. The principal axes of stress are most reliably determined from the orientation of the axial planes of the first order conjugate folds.

Flood basalts in associated volcanic rifted margins, such as the North Atlantic Igneous Province, have a significant component of lavas which are preserved in the present day in an offshore setting. A close inspection of the internal facies architecture of flood basalts onshore provides a framework to interpret the offshore sequences imaged by remote techniques such as reflection seismology. A geological interpretation of the offshore lava sequences in the Faroe–Shetland Basin, using constraints from onshore analogues such as the Faroe Islands, allows for the identification of a series of lava sequences which have characteristic properties so that they can be grouped. These are tabular simple flows, compound-braided flows, and sub-aqueously deposited hyaloclastite facies. The succession of volcanic rocks calculated in this study has a maximum thickness in excess of 6800 m. Down to the top of the sub-volcanic sediments, the offshore volcanic succession has a thickness of about 2700 m where it can be clearly identified across much of the area, with a further 2700 m or more of volcanic rock estimated from the combined gravity and seismic modelling to the north and west of the region. A large palaeo-waterbody is identified on the basis of a hyaloclastite front/apron consisting of a series of clinoforms prograding towards the eastern part of the basin. This body was > 500 m deep, must have been present at the onset of volcanism into this region, and parts of the water body would have been present during the continued stages of volcanism as indicated by the distribution of the hyaloclastite apron.

We report U—Pb and 207Pb/206Pb zircon ages for a granulite facies gneiss assemblage exposed in a large quarry at Ihosy, southern Madagascar. The granulites are derived from pelitic to arkosic sediments and attained equilibrium conditions at 650–700°C and 4–5 kbar. Higher P—T conditions of 750–800°C and 6 kbar in the presence of low water activities have led to dehydration melting processes. The formation of granitic melts, which (partly) moved away from their source region, intruded into upper parts of the metapelitic gneisses as small granitic veins and left behind granulitic garnet-cordierite-quartz bearing rocks. Detrital zircons in a sample of metapelite and a sample of quartzofeldspathic gneiss yielded ages between ˜720 and ˜1855 Ma, suggesting a chronologically heterogeneous source region and a depositional age of less than ˜720 Ma for these rocks. High-grade metamorphism and anatexis are documented by zircon ages between 526 ±34 and 557 ±2 Ma with a mean age of about 550 Ma. The broad lithologies, metamorphic grades and ages recorded in the Ihosy rocks are similar to those in the Wanni Complex of northwestern Sri Lanka and in high-grade assemblages of southernmost India and support the contention that all these terrains were part of the Mozambique belt which formed as a result of collision of East and West Gondwana in latest Precambrian time.