We prove that in every compact space of Delone sets in ${\mathbb {R}}^d$ , which is minimal with respect to the action by translations, either all Delone sets are uniformly spread or continuously many distinct bounded displacement equivalence classes are represented, none of which contains a lattice. The implied limits are taken with respect to the Chabauty–Fell topology, which is the natural topology on the space of closed subsets of ${\mathbb {R}}^d$ . This topology coincides with the standard local topology in the finite local complexity setting, and it follows that the dichotomy holds for all minimal spaces of Delone sets associated with well-studied constructions such as cut-and-project sets and substitution tilings, whether or not finite local complexity is assumed.

We provide a framework for studying randomly coloured point sets in a locally compact second-countable space on which a metrizable unimodular group acts continuously and properly. We first construct and describe an appropriate dynamical system for uniformly discrete uncoloured point sets. For point sets of finite local complexity, we characterize ergodicity geometrically in terms of pattern frequencies. The general framework allows us to incorporate a random colouring of the point sets. We derive an ergodic theorem for randomly coloured point sets with finite-range dependencies. Special attention is paid to the exclusion of exceptional instances for uniquely ergodic systems. The setup allows for a straightforward application to randomly coloured graphs

We characterize equicontinuous Delone dynamical systems as those coming from Delone sets with strongly almost periodic Dirac combs. Within the class of systems with finite local complexity, the only equicontinuous systems are then shown to be the crystallographic ones. On the other hand, within the class without finite local complexity, we exhibit examples of equicontinuous minimal Delone dynamical systems that are not crystallographic. Our results solve the problem posed by Lagarias as to whether a Delone set whose Dirac comb is strongly almost periodic must be crystallographic.