The main phase (∼400 Ma) emplacement of the central and northern part of the reversely zoned Galway Granite was incremental by progressive northward marginal dyke injection and stoping of the 470–467 Ma Connemara metagabbro-gneiss country rock. The space was provided by the synchronous ESE-opening, along the strike of the country rocks, of extensional fractures generated successively northward by a releasing bend in the sinistrally moving Skird Rocks Fault or an equivalent Galway Bay Fault. This fault is a prolongation of the Antrim–Galway (a splay off the Highland Boundary Fault) and Southern Upland Faults. The ESE-strike of the spalled-off rocks controlled the resultant ESE-elongated shape of the batholith. The magma pulses (∼5–30 m in thickness) were progressively more fractionated towards the northern margin so that the coarse Porphyritic (or Megacrystic) Granite (GP; technically granodiorite) in the centre was followed outwards by finer grained, drier and more siliceous granite, until the movements opening the fractures ceased and the magma became too viscous to intrude. ‘Out-of-sequence’ pulses of more basic diorite-granodiorite (including the Mingling–Mixing Zone) and late main phase, more acid, coarse but Aphyric Granite, into the centre of the batholith, complicated the outward fractionation scheme. The outward expansion, caused by the intrusions into the centre, caused a foliation and flattening of cognate xenoliths within the partly crystallised northern marginal granite and in the Mingling–Mixing Zone to the south.

Late phase (∼380 Ma) central intrusions of the newly-discovered aphyric Shannapheasteen Finegrained Granite (technically granodiorite), the Knock, the Lurgan and the Costello Murvey Granites, all more siliceous and less dense than the GP, were emplaced by pushing up the already solid and jointed GP along marginal faults. This concentration of lighter granites plus compression shown in thrusting, caused overall fault uplift of the Central Block of the Galway batholith so that the originally deepest part of the GP is exposed where there is the most late phase granite. Chemical analyses show the main and late phase magmas, including late dykes, were very similar, with repetition of the same fractionation except that the late phase magmas were drier and more quickly cooled, giving finer grained rocks.

A sauropod dinosaur tooth has been recovered from the Kilmaluag Formation (Middle Jurassic: late Bathonian) of Strathaird, Isle of Skye, Western Scotland. It represents the first dinosaur tooth to be described from Scotland. The combination of character states present indicates that it cannot be referred to either Cetiosaurus or Cardiodon and that it may pertain to a basal eusauropod or a basal titanosauriform. A diversity of sauropods was present in the UK in the Middle Jurassic and these faunas have the potential to illuminate many aspects of sauropod evolutionary history.

Previously described and new specimens of the anthracosaur Silvanerpeton miripedes from the Scottish Viséan of East Kirkton yield important new data which allow us to provide a more complete reconstruction of the skull roof, palate, braincase and lower jaw. A stout sacral rib and an incompletely ossified tarsus with a subquadrangular intermedium are also recorded for the first time. A remarkably well preserved humerus in extensor view shows similarities with humeri of immature specimens of the embolomere Proterogyrinus. A new cladistic analysis, built from combining characters used in two recent matrices, places Silvanerpeton in a basal position relative to embolomeres and more derived stem amniotes. Data from Silvanerpeton inform character polarity near the base of the amniote total group. We discuss some morphofunctional implications of character changes at the root of total group amniotes, acquisition of terrestrial habits, and patterns of early disparity in this clade.

Two large fossil plants are described from the Givetian (Middle Devonian) Eday Flags, South Ronaldsay, Orkney Isles, northern Scotland. Fossils with branches joined to stems of this age are rare. Each specimen comprises a robust and tapering main trunk from which numerous closely spaced branches arise distally. Although poorly preserved such that generic identifications are not possible, both specimens display the characteristic architecture of the plant order Pseudosporochnales (Cladoxylopsida). The newly discovered specimens demonstrate a variation in size and form that adds further data to the understanding of the ontogeny of these enigmatic plants, complementing recent morphological and anatomical findings. These specimens, in combination with many more fragmentary fossils of the same kind from the Orcadian sedimentary basin, add to our knowledge of the Givetian floras of Britain, and show that large plants with upright stems were present in the Middle Devonian landscape of Scotland.

Restoration of the morphology of Angustidontus seriatus Cooper, 1936 based on complete specimens from the Famennian of Nevada and Poland, supports its affinity to the coeval alleged decapod Palaeopalaemon and suggests eocarid (possibly also peracarid) affinities. Predatory adaptation of the thoracopods and the relatively short pereion make this crustacean only superficially resemble the archaeostomatopod hoplocarids, because the large grasping appendages of Angustidontus represent the first, rather than second, maxillipeds and acted in the opposite direction: downward. Another similar adaptation of the antennae in the Viséan Palaemysis suggests a widespread adaptation to predation among early eumalacostracans. The large sample collected from the Woodruff Formation of Nevada permits biometric characterisation of the grasping maxillipeds of Angustidontus, showing that their highly variable morphology should not be used to define species. All previously described species are therefore here synonymised with A. seriatus. Differences in gnathobases of mandibles found in articulated specimens in Nevada, and associated with isolated maxillipeds and articulated specimens possibly representing another unnamed species in Poland, suggest that such mandibles may eventually prove to be taxonomically more significant.