A distinct spatial relationship between surface faulting, magmatic intrusions and volcanic activity exists in the Aegean continental crust. In this paper, we provide detailed structural observations from key onshore areas, as well as compilations of lineament maps and earthquake locations with focal plane solutions from offshore areas to support such a relationship. Although pluton emplacement was associated with low-angle extensional detachments, the NNE- to NE-trending strike-slip faults also played an important role in localizing the Middle Miocene plutonism, providing ready pathways to deeper magma batches, and controlling the late-stage emplacement and deformation of granites in the upper crust. Additionally, the linear arrangements of volcanic centres, from the Quaternary volcanoes along the active South Aegean Volcanic Arc, are controlled primarily by NE-trending faults and secondarily by NW-trending faults. These volcanic features are located at several extensional settings, which are associated with the main NE-trending faults, such as (i) in the extensional steps or relay zones between strike-slip and oblique-normal fault segments, (ii) at the overlap zones between oblique-normal faults associated with an extensional strike-slip duplex and (iii) at the tip zone of a NE-trending divergent dextral strike-slip zone. The NE trend of volcano-tectonic features, such as volcanic cone alignments, concentration of eruptive centres, hydrothermal activity and fractures, indicates the significant role of tectonics in controlling fluid and magma pathways in the Aegean upper crust. Furthermore, microseismicity and focal mechanisms of earthquakes in the area confirm the activity and present kinematics of these NE- trending faults.

Parringtonia gracilis Huene, 1939 is represented by both cranial and postcranial material collected from the lower Middle Triassic (Anisian) Lifua Member of the Manda beds in southwestern Tanzania. This aberrant taxon was previously proposed to have affinities with pseudosuchian archosaurs, and specifically with the enigmatic Erpetosuchus granti from the Upper Triassic of Scotland. Here, we confirm the close affinities of Parringtonia gracilis and Erpetosuchus granti based on the following unambiguous synapomorphies: mediolaterally expanded posterior portion of the maxilla, alveoli present only in the anterior half of the maxilla, and absence of tooth serrations. Furthermore, the two taxa share osteoderms with deep sculpturing, a deep fossa on the dorsal margin of the neural spines and a heavily waisted shaft of the scapula. We added both Parringtonia gracilis and Erpetosuchus granti into a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of early archosaurs and found that these taxa are clearly referable to Archosauria but that relationships are poorly resolved at the base of this clade. However, our analysis demonstrates that Erpetosuchus granti is not closely related to Crocodylomorpha, as has been hypothesized previously. The Erpetosuchidae are a clade of small-bodied archosaurs that have a poor fossil record but have members from both northern and southern Pangaea, ranging temporally from the Middle to Late Triassic. Thus, Erpetosuchidae is part of the early archosaurian radiation.

Detailed facies analysis and morphotectonic investigations of the Malin River's alluvial fan in the western Ganga Plain, India, reveal that the morphology of the fan is largely tectonically controlled whereas the sedimentary processes are mainly climatically controlled. The sedimentation occurred in two distinct evolutionary cycles which are separated by a time gap. The older cycle deposited thick gravelly units up to the distal-fan area, whereas the sediment fill of the younger cycle is gavel-dominated in the proximal-fan area, gravel–sand dominated in the middle-fan area and sand–mud dominated in the distal-fan area. The gravels of the older cycle were emplaced by intense sediment gravity flows during periods of strengthened monsoon and steeper regional gradient. During the younger cycle, the proximal to distal parts of the fan were dominated by different sedimentary processes. This was a time of relatively weaker monsoon and gentler regional slopes, when gravels could travel only up to the middle-fan area. The gravels in the proximal-fan area have mainly been deposited by sediment gravity flows and channel processes; in the middle-fan area channel processes, sheetfloods and sediment gravity flows have been the main sedimentary processes; and in the distal-fan area fluvial processes of channel migration and overbank deposition have been the main sedimentary processes.

The Almacık Mountains in northwestern Turkey expose an upper-amphibolite-facies complex consisting of alternating ultramafic (harzburgitic and websteritic) and mafic (metagabbroic) rock types. In the eastern part of this complex are island arc meta-tholeiites and transitional to calc-alkaline metabasites that are chemically quite similar to those of the Permo-Triassic Çele mafic complex north of Bolu, and this suggests an equivalence. However, much of the section exposes structurally deeper and chemically different mafic and ultramafic rocks, which have no equivalent in the Çele mafic complex, and isotopic dating has suggested that these rocks also formed during the Permian period and underwent Triassic and Jurassic metamorphism. Furthermore, sparse inherited ages, unlike those from İstanbul Zone granitoids, suggest a link with North African-derived Armorican-type basement (and hence the Sakarya Zone), rather than Amazonia-derived Avalonian basement. Alternating mafic and ultramafic rocks suggest structural repetition, supported by the exposure of discrete high-strain zones or poorly exposed shattered rock west of each outcrop of ultramafic rocks. The high grade of metamorphism, and the absence of either extrusive lavas or sheeted dyke rocks, suggests that the Almacık complex was not an ophiolite, but formed instead as subcontinental lower crust and subjacent mantle. Dominantly calc-alkaline geochemistry suggests that it formed the basement to an active continental margin bounding the north side of the Sakarya Continent, with S-dipping subduction of Palaeotethys. The Almacık complex was uplifted as a late result of compression against the southern margin of the İstanbul Zone in the Jurassic period. Lack of coeval high-grade metamorphism in the İstanbul Zone indicates that the latter was overthrust southwards over the Sakarya margin, and that there was therefore a change of subduction polarity in the Triassic period. The evidence further casts doubt on the existence of a Mesozoic Intra-Pontide Ocean in northwestern Turkey and suggests that the latest Permian magmatism, with subsequent Triassic and Jurassic metamorphism, was instead related to the closure of the Palaeotethyan Ocean.

The Kızıldağ (Hatay) ophiolite in Turkey represents remnants of the southern Neotethyan ocean and is characterized by a complete ocean lithospheric section. It formed in a fore-arc setting above a N-dipping intraoceanic subduction zone, and represents the undeformed, more northerly part of the same thrust sheet that also forms the Baer–Bassit ophiolite to the south. The ophiolite was emplaced southwards from the southerly Neotethyan ocean in Maastrichtian time. U–Pb and Sm–Nd dates are used to constrain the crystallization age and duration of magmatic activity of the Kızıldağ ophiolite. U–Pb dating yielded ages of 91.7 ± 1.9 Ma for a plagiogranite and 91.6 ± 3.8 Ma for a cumulate gabbro. The cumulate gabbro also yielded a Sm–Nd isochron age of 95.3 ± 6.9 Ma. The measured ages suggest that the oceanic crust of the Kızıldağ ophiolite formed in a maximum time period of 6 Ma, and that the plagiogranite may have formed later than the gabbroic section. The U–Pb zircon ages from the Kızıldağ ophiolite and the cooling age of a metamorphic sole beneath the Baer–Bassit ophiolite are indistinguishable within the analytical uncertainties. This indicates the presence of young and hot oceanic lithosphere at the time of intraoceanic subduction/thrusting in the southern Neotethys. The U–Pb zircon ages from the Kızıldağ, the Troodos and the Semail ophiolites overlap within analytical uncertainties, suggesting that these ophiolites are contemporaneous and genetically and tectonically related within the same Late Cretaceous southern Neotethyan ocean.

The global standard for the Llandovery Series (early Silurian) in central Wales is re-assessed in the light of detailed geological surveying, biostratigraphical sampling and a rigorous examination of published datasets. A new sedimentary and biostratigraphical architecture is presented. Key graptolite, brachiopod, acritarch and, for the first time, chitinozoan assemblages are critically assessed. Upper Hirnantian to Aeronian strata record events that followed the Late Ordovician glacial maximum and comprise a series of progradational sequences bounded by flooding surfaces, but inferred still to be glacioeustatic in origin. Significant faunal renewals associated with many of the flooding levels underpin their potential for international recognition. Compound non-sequences are a feature of proximal parts of the system where erosion associated with fault footwall uplift was an important process. Extensive slump sheets contribute to further stratal loss and displacement in distal facies. A re-assessment of the Aeronian Stage GSSP reveals shortcomings with the biostratigraphical criteria used in its selection. Telychian portions of the succession display the disrupting effects of intra-Wenlock synsedimentary sliding; hence the relevance of key published fossil assemblages and the criteria used to erect the stage GSSP are undermined. However, the Llandovery area remains one of the best studied early Silurian successions in the world. This, together with regional considerations, supports the retention of the series standard in mid Wales where the contiguous deep-water basinal succession affords internationally cited exposure of richly graptolitic facies for the whole series and, significantly, for the post-sedgwickii Biozone interval.

New age data from Sr isotope analysis and both planktonic foraminifera and nannofossils are presented and discussed here for the Upper Eocene–Upper Miocene sedimentary rocks of the Değirmenlik (Kythrea) Group. New dating is also given of some Cretaceous and Pliocene sediments. In a revised stratigraphy the Değirmenlik (Kythrea) Group is divided into ten formations. Different Upper Miocene formations are developed to the north and south of a regionally important, E–W-trending syn-sedimentary fault. The samples were dated wherever possible by three independent methods, namely utilizing Sr isotopes, calcareous nannofossils and planktonic foraminifera. Some of the Sr isotopic dates are incompatible with the nannofossil and/or the planktonic foraminiferal dates. This is mainly due to reworking within gravity-deposited or current-affected sediments. When combined, the reliable age data allow an overall biostratigraphy and chronology to be erected. Several of the boundaries of previously defined formations are revised. Sr data that are incompatible with well-constrained biostratigraphical ages are commonly of Early Miocene age. This is attributed to a regional uplift event located to the east of Cyprus, specifically the collision of the Anatolian (Eurasian) and Arabian (African) plates during Early Miocene time. This study, therefore, demonstrates that analytically sound Sr isotopic ages can yield geologically misleading ages, particularly where extensive sediment reworking has occurred. Convincing ages are obtained when isotopic dating is combined with as many forms of biostratigraphical dating as possible, and this may also reveal previously unsuspected geological events (e.g. tectonic uplift or current activity).

A series of very wide (up to 15 km) raised shore platforms in the Scottish Hebrides are identified and described for the first time and are considered part of a high rock platform shoreline in the western isles of Scotland described by W. B. Wright in his classic Geological Magazine paper a century ago as a ‘preglacial’ feature. Subsequent interpretations suggesting that the platforms were produced during the Pleistocene are rejected here in favour of a speculative hypothesis that the features are part of the well-known strandflat that is extensively developed across large areas of the northern hemisphere. It is argued that the Scottish strandflat developed during the Pliocene and was later subjected to extensive Pleistocene glacial erosion such that only a few areas of platform have survived in the Scottish Inner Hebrides (ice-proximal) while they are well-preserved in the Outer Hebrides (ice-distal). Support for a Pliocene hypothesis is provided by the marine oxygen isotope record for this time interval which points to prolonged periods of relative sea level stability as would be required for the production of such wide features. This hypothesis for the formation of a Scottish strandflat not only provides an elegant explanation for the origin and age of the raised rock platform fragments that occur throughout the western isles of Scotland, but it may also have relevance for other coastal areas of the northern hemisphere (e.g. Norway, Greenland, Alaska) where the strandflat is a well-developed feature.

A single specimen of a new species of the synziphosurine Kasibelinurus Pickett, 1993 is described from the Lower Devonian (Lochkovian) Xiaxishancun Formation of Yunnan Province, China. The new species, K. yueya sp. nov., extends the geographic extent of the family Kasibelinuridae from the Australian palaeocontinent to the South China palaeocontinent, and the stratigraphic range back some 50 Ma from Late to Early Devonian.

Rugose corals are thought to have evolved from an ancestral anthozoan during the Middle Ordovician Epoch even though there is a lack of fossil evidence for the early evolutionary history of the Rugosa. Previously documented species of early rugose corals are all assigned to the main orders Calostylina, Streptelasmatina, Cystiphyllina and Stauriina, which had all evolved by the late Sandbian. Lambelasma? sp., a new rugose coral, was recovered from the upper Darriwilian (Middle Ordovician) part of the Shirgesht Formation of Central Iran. One of the fossils, partly embedded in rock matrix, was examined using synchrotron X-ray tomography, which is here demonstrated to be a useful tool in palaeontological taxonomic studies. The new fossils form part of a mid-latitude Gondwana fauna and are the earliest record of rugose corals to date. The specimens combine features of both the Streptelasmatina and Calostylina, but are here assigned to the Lambelasmatidae (Calostylina) on the grounds of a very deep calice, the pinnate arrangement of the septa and a lack of synapticulae and tabulae.