Collections from the Barr Group (late Llanvirn to early Caradoc) of the Girvan district are described and occurrences of all trilobites from both the Barr and Albany groups are listed and their frequencies recorded. The close relationships with North American faunas are emphasised, and three Girvan and North American species are considered synonymous. One new species is described, Bevanopsis phyllisae. Pandaspinapyga is considered a junior subjective synonym of Acanthoparypha. The possibility that Alwynulus may be an aberrant staurocephalid is discussed.

Growth stages of several genera are illustrated; some show unexpectedly large differences in size and morphology in comparison with North American silicified species at the same general stage of development.

The Eleonore Bay Supergroup (EBG) is a 16 km-thick shallow-water sequence of Neoproterozoic age that is preserved within the East Greenland Caledonides in several tracts, surrounded by crystalline gneisses and schistose supracrustal rocks. The apparent downward transition from non-metamorphic EBG into gneiss gave rise to the classic ‘stockwerke’ hypothesis, in which all the metamorphism was regarded as Caledonian, and differences in grade were ascribed to the ascent of a migmatite front to different levels within the orogen. Field and isotopic studies in the 1970s however revealed that the underlying gneisses and schists had undergone orogenic reworking in mid-Proterozoic time; the EBG–basement contact was then interpreted as an approximately bedding-parallel décollement with apparent lag geometry, that is with EBG cover rocks in its hangingwall.

Recent work in the northernmost EBG tract, at Ardencaple Fjord, has shed light on the problems posed by the basal relationships of the EBG, and together with regional structural and stratigraphic data leads to the following interpretation. There are two regionally important basement-cover interfaces within the East Greenland Caledonides. The earlier one is between Archaean/early Proterozoic gneisses and early Proterozoic supracrustal rocks, which were pervasively deformed in mid-Proterozoic time and form the basement to the Neoproterozoic Eleonore Bay cover sequence. This was deposited on a vast, continually subsiding shelf that is now preserved in East and NE Greenland and Svalbard, and contains Grenville detritus. EBG deposition was terminated by major extensional faulting of Vendian age; the succeeding Tillite Group is interpreted as a syn-rift sequence, presumably associated with the opening of Iapetus.

The EBG–basement contacts that are not late faults are inferred to be extensional shear zones of Vendian age. These were reactivated in compression during the Caledonian orogeny in the Silurian, with metamorphic and fabric convergence, which accounts for the apparent downward transition from sedimentary rocks through schists into gneisses. Caledonian shortening was not large; inversion of the Vendian grabens was incomplete, so that the marginal shear zones retained their lag geometry and large tracts of low grade Eleonore Bay sediments are preserved at the present erosion level, surrounded by Proterozoic basement rocks, within the Caledonian belt of East Greenland.

A sporomorph assemblage recovered from the Sandy's Creek Beds, which constitute a diminutive fault bounded inlier on the west coast of the Midland Valley of Scotland, is described. Four species of trilete spore and the genus Fustisispora, a monospecific cryptospore genus, are proposed as new. The sporomorph assemblage is attributed an early Devonian, late–early to early–late Lochkovian age, and is interpreted as accumulating in a continental environment. The Sandy's Creek Beds are correlated herein with the upper part of the Arbuthnott Group which crops out in the north-east of the Midland Valley. Comparison with other sporomorph assemblages of similar age indicates that minor regional variation exists. It is suggested that this is related to small-scale regional variation in the composition of vegetation.

The Mandala drainage basin lies in the central part of the West African craton immediately to the south of the regional watershed. There has been frequent kimberlite dyke intrusion in the basin. The kimberlites range in grade from apparently barren to having a high diamond content. The presence of other undiscovered kimberlites can be inferred from the distribution, chemistry and abundance of kimberlite satellite minerals and variations in diamond size and character. Secondary diamond deposits are widespread with the main concentrations in the present and former Mandala valley bottoms. Tributaries have lower diamond contents. There are systematic variations in the alluvial diamond characteristics which can be explained in terms of diamond sources as well as transport of the diamonds away from those sources. The occurrence of the secondary diamond deposits is explained by the form and distribution of the primary sources, the nature of the drainage network and the long-term evolution of the drainage basin. Since the Pliocene or Early Pleistocene the Mandala has been rejuvenated with incision of the main channel by up to 26 m. This incision has led to flushing of the tributaries and storage of sediment, including diamonds, in the principal channel.

The Lower Ordovician (Oeland Series) type species of Lamanskya, L. splendens Moberg & Segerberg 1906, was described originally as an articulate brachiopod, but it is here redescribed and referred to the lingulid Family Elkaniidae. L. splendens ranges from the late Tremadoc to the early Arenig in Baltoscandia (Norway, Sweden, Estonia, and the St Petersburg district of Russia). Aulonotreta kuraganica Andreeva 1972 from the Lower Ordovician of the Ural Mountains is also redescribed and referred to Lamanskya. The genus Dictyobolus Williams & Curry 1985, from the Lower Ordovician of Ireland, is a junior synomym of Lamanskya. All species of the genus are strongly biconvex, and have a well-developed ornamentation of elongate lenticular pits. The problematic Genus Volborthia von Moller 1870 is also considered tentatively to belong within the Elkaniidae.

The Ordovician and Silurian successions between Falahill and Galashiels encompass six flysch-dominated formations: the Upper Ordovician Portpatrick and Shinnel Formations representing the Leadhills Group, the Llandovery Mindork, Garheugh, and Buckholm Formations together comprising the Gala Group, and a formation indeterminate of age within the Hawick Group. Southward ensialic andesitic volcanic arc and northward low- to medium-grade sialic sources contributed sediment, whilst ophiolitic and subduction-related sources made minor contributions. Deposition took place firstly, in a SE-migrating back-arc basin bordering the northerly source, the Laurentian continent. Subsequent NW-directed underthrusting led to formation out of the back-arc basin of an imbricate thrust stack which migrated southeastwards. Ultimately a foreland successor basin formed ahead of the rising thrust stack.

Flysch units are typically associated with linear outcrops of Moffat Shales which are the loci of major steep SE-translating reverse faults, two of which participate in a late-stage sinistral strike–slip duplex with large-scale imbrication. The faults divide the succession into a sequence of tectonostratigraphic blocks, successively younger to the SE. At least six of the ten blocks customarily recognised in the Southern Uplands, Blocks 3–8, are represented, some of which coincide with single or complete formations.