The postcranial skeleton of Acanthostega gunnari from the Famennian of East Greenland displays a unique, transitional, mixture of features conventionally associated with fishand tetrapod-like morphologies. The rhachitomous vertebral column has a primitive, barely differentiated atlas-axis complex, encloses an unconstricted notochordal canal, and the weakly ossified neural arches have poorly developed zygapophyses. More derived axial skeletal features include caudal vertebral proliferation and, transiently, neural radials supporting unbranched and unsegmented lepidotrichia. Sacral and post-sacral ribs reiterate uncinate cervical and anterior thoracic rib morphologies: a simple distal flange supplies a broad surface for iliac attachment. The octodactylous forelimb and hindlimb each articulate with an unsutured, foraminate endoskeletal girdle. A broad-bladed femoral shaft with extreme anterior torsion and associated flattened epipodials indicates a paddle-like hindlimb function. Phylogenetic analysis places Acanthostega as the sister-group of Ichthyostega plus all more advanced tetrapods. Tulerpeton appears to be a basal stemamniote plesion, tying the amphibian-amniote split to the uppermost Devonian. Caerorhachis may represent a more derived stem-amniote plesion. Postcranial evolutionary trends spanning the taxa traditionally associated with the fish-tetrapod transition are discussed in detail. Comparison between axial skeletons of primitive tetrapods suggests that plesiomorphic fish-like morphologies were re-patterned in a cranio-caudal direction with the emergence of tetrapod vertebral regionalisation. The evolution of digited limbs lags behind the initial enlargement of endoskeletal girdles, whereas digit evolution precedes the elaboration of complex carpal and tarsal articulations. Pentadactylous limbs appear to have stabilised independently in amniote and amphibian lineages; the colosteid Greererpeton has a pentadactylous manus, indicating that basal amphibian forelimbs may not be restricted to patterns of four digits or less.

The definition and scope of Ordovician genera of agnostid trilobites are discussed, and the generic affiliation of Ordovician species and well-illustrated material referred to in open nomenclature is assessed. Some 198 Ordovician species plus 25 species of uncertain latest Cambrian/earliest Ordovician age are enumerated, representing 24 genera and subgenera, of which Geragnostus (Novoagnostus) n.subg. and Lotagnostus (Semagnostus) n.subg. are new. Geragnostella is ranked as a subgenus of Geragnostus. The species of Arthrorhachis are tentatively divided among a tardus species group and an elspethi species group. Species of Dividuagnostus are divided among a sensu stricto group and an early species group. Pseudorhaptagnostus Lermontova, 1951 is restored as senior synonym of Neoagnostus Kobayashi, 1955. It is concluded that Ordovician agnostids were largely adapted to temperate and colder water habitats.

The stratigraphy of the Neoproterozoic Dalradian Supergroup has been formalised at group, subgroup and formation level, based largely on mapping in the SW Highlands of Scotland. Elsewhere, there has been a tendency for the lithostratigraphy to be fitted into this framework, implying that the lithostratigraphy represents basin-wide changes in depositional environment. The pitfalls of this ‘layer-cake’ approach are illustrated by interpreting the geology of the Gleann Fearnach to Glen Shee area of the Central Highlands, using the published maps of the adjacent regions. Attempts to correlate units into the Braemar area in the NE and into the Pitlochry area in the SW show considerable mismatch between the maps covering these areas, which has in the past led to invocation of geometrically unlikely arrangements of faults and slides to explain the lithostratigraphical distribution.

The present study is the result of a different approach adopted during remapping of the Gleann Fearnach to Glen Shee area. Some basin-wide events, here suggested to be associated with key sequence stratigraphic surfaces, were identified. These principally relate to the deposition of Appin Quartzite, Boulder Bed and Ben Lawers Schist precursor sediments. Between these reference units the stratigraphy has been determined by detailed field mapping, and variation from the standard stratigraphy explained in terms of both the position within the depositional sequence and palaeogeography during deposition. This has led to an integrated solution which works on both sedimentological and structural grounds. There are local implications for the stratigraphy and structural geology elsewhere in the Scottish Dalradian, but, more importantly, it is an approach which must be more widely applied in order to make wider correlations beyond the British Dalradian to the rest of the Laurentian margin.

After many years of systematic experimental investigations, it is now possible to quantify the conditions for optimum fertility to melt production of most common crustal rock types as functions of temperature and to about 30 kbar pressure. Quartzo-feldspathic melting produces steady increases in melt proportion with increasing temperature. The exact melt fraction depends on the mineral mode relative to quartz-feldspar eutectics and the temperatures of mica dehydration melting reactions. Mica melting consumes SiO2 from residual quartz during the formation of refractory Al2SiO5, orthopyroxene, garnet or cordierite.

A simple graphical interpretation of experimental results allows a deduction of the proportions of mica and feldspar leading to optimum fertility. In effect, the mica dehydration melting reactions, at specific pressure and are superimposed on quartz-feldspar melting relations projected onto Ab-An-Or. Fertility to melt production varies with the mica to feldspar ratio and pressure. Pelites are more fertile than psammites at low pressures (e.g. 5 kbar), especially if they contain An40 to An50 plagioclase. At higher pressure (e.g. 10-20 kbar) and for rocks containing albitic plagioclase, psammites are more fertile than pelites. For a typical pelite (e.g. with An25 at 20 kbar), the cotectic with muscovite lies at higher (≍·) and XAb (≍0·42) than with biotite :≍0·35; XAb(≍·), thus dehydration melting of muscovite requires 10% more plagioclase for fertility than does biotite.

The first melts from dehydration melting of muscovite (with Plg + Qtz) are more sodic and form at lower temperatures than the first melts from Bio + Plg + Qtz. With increasing pressure, to at least 30 kbar, granite minimum and mica dehydration melts become more sodic. This indicates that of such melts is greater than 0·3.

The chert of the Muir of Rhynie, containing plant-remains, was discovered by Dr W. MACKIE of Elgin while investigating the sedimentary and volcanic rocks of Craigbeg and Ord Hill which occur in that area. The original discovery was made on loose specimens, built into the dykes or scattered over the fields, especially those lying to the north of the road which runs from Rhynie to Cabrach, and east and west of the right-of-way that here connects Windyfield Farm with the public road.

Melting experiments with and without added H2O on a model metagreywacke and a natural metapelite demonstrate how pressure and H2O content control the compositions of melts and residual assemblages. Several effects are observed under isothermal conditions. Firstly, the stability field of biotite shrinks with decreasing pressure and with increasing H2O content, whereas that of plagioclase shrinks with increasing pressure and H2O content. Secondly, the ferromagnesian content of melts at the source (i.e. coexisting with their residual assemblages) decreases with decreasing H2O activity. Thirdly, with increasing pressure the Ca/Mg and Ca/Fe ratios of melts decrease relative to those of coexisting garnet. As a consequence, a wide spectrum of melts and crystalline residues can be generated from the same source material. For example, H2O-starved dehydration melting of metagreywacke at low pressure (≤10 kbar) generates K-rich (granitic) melts that coexist with pyroxene- and plagioclase-rich residues, whereas melting of the same material at high pressure (≍15 kbar) and with minor H2O infiltration can generate leucocratic Na-rich and Ca-poor (trondhjemitic) melts that coexist with biotite- and garnet-rich residues. An increased H2O content stabilises orthopyroxene at the expense of garnet + biotite + plagioclase, causing melts to shift towards granodioritic or perhaps tonalitic compositions.

Low altitude sandy plains (machair) are a common feature of the Atlantic coasts of the Outer Hebrides. They formed as a result of shoreward movement of material consequent upon a rise in Holocene sea levels. A number of earlier, partially inconclusive, investigations into machair evolution proposed that fuller understanding could arise from an examination of inter-tidal organic deposits, in so far as these could provide a fossil proxy record of the processes involved in machair formation. Study of a series of inter-tidal peats sites located on a beach platform at Borve, island of Benbecula, provided both spatial and chronological evidence for sand movement as well as furnishing new data on vegetational and environmental history. The pollen diagrams show a flora in which Calluna vulgaris (heather) and Poaceae (grass) are frequent dominants, while such arbroeal taxa as Betula (birch) and Corylus avellana-type (cf. hazel) are notable. The existence of birch–hazel woodland for the period c. 8855–6190 BP might conceivably have had a retarding effect on sand movement. Later cycles of sand movement would not have met such obstruction with the consequence that sand mobility and machair plain evolution could have been faster. Sand arrival at the seaward site (Borve 3), is dated to c. 6735 BP and it continued until c. 6045 BP, after which it slowed before increasing again from around 5990 BP. This sand incursion produced a machair plain over the Borve sites as part of a continuous, but variously paced, marine and aeolian process. The presence of charcoal from c. 6860 BP, with a major increase in charcoal to pollen ratios by 6190 BP, may suggest that natural or intentional burning of the vegetation cover of the machair occurred in Mesolithic times; if the burning was anthropogenic in origin, then it pushes the possible involvement of humans in machair destabilisation to a time long before the previously proposed Neolithic period. A wet slack deposit, dated to 3400 ± 70 BP, indicates a time when sand movement overwhelmed the area around the landward site (Borve 1) and when the rate of sand movement was likely to have been impeded. The data from Borve suggest that evolution of machair landforms occurs at a slow, variable rate and that there is considerable long-term stability.

Dehydration melting of crustal rocks may commonly occur in response to the intrusion of mafic magma in the mid- or lower crust. However, the relative importance of melt buoyancy, shear or dyking in melt generation and extraction under geologically relevant conditions is not well understood. A numerical model of the partial melting of a metapelite is presented and the model results are compared with the Ivrea-Verbano Zone in northern Italy. The numerical model uses the mixture theory approach to modelling simultaneous convection and phase change and includes special ramping and switching functions to accommodate the rheology of crystal-melt mixtures in accordance with the results of deformation experiments. The model explicitly includes both porous media flow and thermally and compositionally driven bulk convection of a restitecharged melt mass. A range of melt viscosity and critical melt fraction models is considered. General agreement was found between predicted positions of isopleths and those from the Ivrea-Verbano Zone. Maximum melt velocities in the region of porous flow are found to be 1 × 10−7 and 1 × 10−1m per year in the region of viscous flow. The results indicate that melt buoyancy alone may not be a sufficient agent for melt extraction and that extensive, vigorous convection of partially molten rocks above mafic bodies is unlikely, in accord with direct geological examples.

Calymenid trilobites from the Wenlock Series (Silurian) of Britain

Derek J. Siveter

Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences, 86, 257–285, 1996.

The behaviour of trace elements during partial melting depends primarily on their mode of occurrence. For elements occurring as trace constituents of major phases (e.g. Li, Rb, Cs, Eu, Sr, Ba, Ga, etc.), slow intracrystalline diffusion (D ≍ 10−16 cm2 s−1) at the temperature range of crustal anatexis causes all effective crystal-melt partition coefficients to have a value close to unity and impedes further melt-restite re-equilibration. Usually, therefore, the trace element composition of crustal melts simply depends on the mass balance between the proportion and composition of phases that melt and the proportion and composition of newly formed phases. The behaviour of trace elements occurring as essential structural components in accessory phases (e.g. P, La-Sm, Gd-Lu, Y, Th, U, Zr, Hf, etc.) depends on the solubility, solution kinetics, grain size and the textural position of accessory phases. In common crustal protoliths a significant mass fraction of monazite, zircon, xenotime, Th-orthosilicates, uraninite; etc.—but not apatite—is included within other major and accessory phases. During low melt fraction anatexis the amount of accessory phases available for the melt is not sufficient for saturation, thus producing leucosomes with concentrations of La-Sm, Gd-Lu, Y, Th, U and Zr lower than expected from solubility equations. Low concentrations of these elements may also occur if the melt is prevented from reaching equilibrium with the accessories due to fast segregation. However, the first mechanism seems more feasible as leucosomes that are undersaturated with respect to monazite and zircon are frequently saturated, even oversaturated, with respect to apatite.

Finite difference numerical simulations were used to characterise the rates of diffusion-controlled dissolution and growth of zircon in melts of granitic composition under geologically realistic conditions. The simulations incorporated known solubility and Zr diffusivity relationships for melts containing 3 wt% dissolved H2O and were carried out in both one and thre dimensions under conditions of constant temperature, linearly time-dependent temperature and for a variety of host system thermal histories. The rate of zircon dissolution at constant temperature depends systematically on time (t½−12;), temperature (exp T−1) and degree of undersaturation of the melt with respect to zircon (in ppm Zr). Linear dissolution and growth rates fall in the range 10−19 10−15 cm s−1 at temperatures of 650-850°C. Radial rates are strongly dependent on crystal size (varying in inverse proportion to the radius, r): for r>30 μm, dissolution and growth rates fall between 10−17 and 10−13 cm s−1. During crustal magmatism, the chances of survival for relict cores of protolith zircons depend on several factors, the most important of which are: the initial radius of the zircon; the intensity and duration of the magmatic event; and the volume of the local melt reservoir with which the zircon interacts. In general, only the largest protolith zircons (>120 μm radius) are likely to survive magmatic events exceeding 850°C. Conversely, only the smallest zircons (<50 μm radius) are likely to be completely consumed during low-temperature anatexis (i.e. not exceeding ≍700°C).

The effects of stirring the zircon-melt system are unimportant to dissolution and growth behaviour; except under circumstances of extreme shearing (e.g. filter pressing?), zircon dissolution is controlled by diffusion of Zr in the melt.

Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences 87, 95–103, 1996

New experimental determinations of water solubility in haplogranitic melts (anhydrous compositions in the system Qz-Ab-Or and binary joins) and of the viscosity of hydrous Qz28Ab38Or34 melts (normative proportions) and natural peraluminous leucogranitic melt (Gangotri, High Himalaya) are used to constrain the evolution of viscosity of ascending magmas, depending on their P-T paths.

At constant pressure, in the case of fluid-absent melting conditions, with water as the main volatile dissolved in the melts, the viscosity of melts generated from quartzo-feldspathic protoliths is lower at low temperature than at, high temperature (difference of 1-2 log units between 700 and 900°C). This is due to the higher water contents of the melts at low temperature than at high temperature and to the fact that decreasing temperature does not counterbalance the effect of increasing melt water content. In ascending magmas generated from crustal material the magma viscosity does not change significantly whatever the P-T path followed (i.e. path with cooling and crystallisation; adiabatic path with decompression melting) as long as the crystal fraction is low enough to assume a Newtonian behaviour (30-50% crystals, depending on size and shape). Comparison of the properties of natural and synthetic systems suggests that both water solubility and the viscosity of multicomponent natural felsic melts (with less than 30-35% normative Qz) can be extrapolated from those of the equivalent synthetic feldspar melts.