Sediments from the ST5 deep-sea bottom core collected from the south-east Aegean Sea between Symi and Tilos islands, Greece, were examined by quantitative mineralogical analysis and geochemical analysis to infer provenance and palaeoenvironmental control over sediment deposition. The mineralogical composition comprises carbonates (mainly calcite and Mg-calcite), quartz, feldspars, serpentine, amphibole and clay minerals. Chlorite is the most abundant clay mineral, whereas smectite and illite are less abundant than in the sediments in the south-west Aegean and the Cretan Sea. Semi-quantitative analysis of clay minerals from oriented clay fractions overestimates significantly the smectite content and underestimates the abundances of illite, chlorite and kaolinite. The studied sediments are enriched in MgO, Ni and Cr, which decrease in abundance with decreasing depth, following the distribution of serpentine. By contrast, the abundances of SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, Na2O and K2O increase upcore. The regional S1 sapropel horizon is enriched in V and Co and has considerably greater Ba/Al ratios than the remaining sequence. The mineralogical and geochemical relationships indicate a strong ultrabasic influence, probably from the Marmaris ophiolite in the Lycian nappes. The clay mineral distribution suggests that the smectite was mainly of volcanogenic origin, the illite was supplied by the nearby landmasses of west Anatolia and the islands of Rhodes, Tilos and Symi and the contribution from the south-east Mediterranean was limited or totally lacking. The combined use of the mineralogical and geochemical analysis of bulk sediments rather than the clay fractions is not only extremely useful in tracing sediment provenance in relatively closed basins, but it also enables a more realistic assessment of the importance of water circulation patterns on sedimentation processes in such environments.

The publication of the British Geological Survey memoir on Rum and the Small Isles in 1997 was followed by a period of intense petrological and mineralogical research, leading to some 40 papers, books and other publications. The research progress since then is reviewed here and integrated with the information previously available to provide an overview of the current status of understanding of the centre. New data on the acidic and mixed acid/basic magmas of the early Rum caldera demonstrate that frequent mafic replenishments were the main driver for magmatic activity at Rum right from its initial stages. The caldera is bound by the Main Ring Fault, a structure which probably also exercised an influence on the emplacement of the subsequent basic and ultrabasic intrusions. The later emplacement of gabbros and ultrabasic rocks caused only limited thermal metamorphism of the surrounding Torridonian sandstones, contrasting markedly with the crustal isotope signatures of the early intracaldera ignimbrite magmas and the intense alteration of uplifted masses of Lewisian gneiss within the ring fault. Rare picritic dykes provide an indication of the possible parent magma for the mafic and ultrabasic rocks, but these, as with most other magmatic rocks on Rum, have undergone varying degrees of crustal contamination, involving both Lewisian granulite and amphibolite-type crust but, notably, no Moine metasedimentary compositions as is the case at the nearby Ardnamurchan centre. Detailed textural studies on the gabbroic and ultrabasic rocks allow a distinction between intrusive peridotites and peridotite that forms part of the classic layered cumulate units of Rum and, furthermore, this work and that on the chromite seams and veins in these rocks shows that movement of trapped magma and magma derived from later intrusions, may produce textures regarded previously as of primary cumulate origin. Sulfides in the chromitite seams and ultrabasic rocks, in turn, show possible influences from assimilated Mesozoic sediments. Igneous activity on Rum was short-lived, possibly only between 0.5 and 1 m.y. in duration and commenced at ∼60.5 Ma. The Rum Central Complex was extinct by the time the main activity at the nearby Skye Central Complex commenced (∼59 Ma). From recent apatite fission-track studies it seems probable that Rum, in common with other Palaeogene centres, underwent a brief, but significantly later heating event (∼45 Ma).