ALBERT

Beschreibung: Organisms of unknown biological affinities, assigned to the genus Chaetosalpinx, are known to infest Palaeozoic tabulate corals and stromatoporoids. Analysis of distribution of these parasites, performed on Emsian-Eifelian material of Favosites goldfussi (Anthozoa, Tabulata) from the Northern Region of the Holy Cross Mountains (Poland), shows that parasites were absent in the early astogenetical stages, and that during astogeny both the absolute number of parasites per colony and the number of parasites per polyp were increasing. The latter can reach 2.7 parasites per polyp. Preferred settling places are in corallite corners (junction of three individuals), but dense infestation also produced settlement in the corallite walls (between two individuals). Probable causes of the increase are insufficient protection by host's cnidae, insufficient immune system response, and parasite ability to adapt to the host's defences.

Beschreibung: Critical to understanding long-term trends in diversity is a dataset that is both worldwide in scope and based on a sound taxonomic foundation. In this paper we re-evaluate the Famennian (Late Devonian) echinoderm dataset, which has changed radically in the past decade, and reinterpret patterns of Late Devonian echinoderm extinction and rebound based on these new data. Historically, Famennian (Late Devonian) and earliest Carboniferous echinoderms have been poorly known on a global basis leading to interpretations of prolonged rebound from the Devonian extinction events. Recent discoveries of abundant and diverse Famennian echinoderm faunas from northwestern China, Colorado, Australia and Iran, together with re-examination of previously known echinoderm faunas from Germany and England, have altered drastically our understanding of the patterns of extinction and rebound of Famennian and earliest Carboniferous echinoderm communities. Overall, Famennian echinoderm diversity at the generic level is nearly five times greater than reported in the 2002 Sepkoski compilation, and familial level diversity is more than seven times greater than previously thought. Despite the increases in diversity, Famennian echinoderm faunas show a reduced diversity of camerate crinoids that typify both Middle Devonian and Lower Mississippian faunas and portend the rise of cladid crinoid diversity later in the Carboniferous. Individual Famennian faunas are numerically dominated by blastoids, which also portends trends seen at various times later in the Palaeozoic. In general, we are able to recognize the following trends. Rebound from the Late Devonian extinction events in echinoderms was more rapid than previously thought, but seems to be concentrated in Asia. Palaeogeographically Famennian echinoderms can be grouped into two broad regions: one includes China, Australia and Iran, all of which bordered the Palaeotethys; the other includes regions from Laurussia (Europe and North America) and northern Africa (Morocco).

Beschreibung: New structural, sedimentological, petrological and palaeomagnetic data collected in the region of Nakhlak-Anarak provide important constraints on the Cimmerian evolution of Central Iran. The Olenekian-Upper Ladinian succession of Nakhlak was deposited in a forearc setting, and records the exhumation and erosion of an orogenic wedge, possibly located in the present-day Anarak region. The Triassic succession was deformed after Ladinian times and shows south-vergent folds and thrusts unconformably covered by Upper Cretaceous limestones following the Late Jurassic Neo-Cimmerian deformation. Palaeomagnetic data obtained in the Olenekian succession suggest a palaeoposition of the region close to Eurasia at a latitude around 20{degrees}N. In addition, the palaeopoles do not support large anticlockwise rotations around vertical axes for central Iran with respect to Eurasia since the Middle Triassic, as previously suggested. The Anarak Metamorphic Complex (AMC) includes blueschist-facies metabasites associated with discontinuous slivers of serpentinized ultramafic rocks and Carboniferous greenschist-facies Variscan' metamorphic rocks, including widespread metacarbonates. The AMC was formed, at least partially, in the Triassic. Its erosion is recorded by the Middle Triassic B[a]qoroq Formation at Nakhlak, which consists of conglomerates and sandstones rich in metamorphic detritus. The AMC was repeatedly deformed during post-Triassic times, giving origin to a complex structural setting characterized by strong tectonic fragmentation of previously formed tectonic units. Based on these data, we suggest that the Nakhlak-Anarak units represent an arc-trench system developed during the Eo-Cimmerian orogenic cycle. Different tectonic scenarios that can account for the evolution of the region and for the occurrence of this orogenic wedge in its present position within Central Iran are critically discussed, as well as its relationships with a presumed Variscan' metamorphic event.

Beschreibung: A CHANGING GAS SUPPLY PICTURE The UK economy faces a major challenge; our indigenous gas supplies are in decline and we are moving towards increasing import dependence on gas. By the end of the decade, the UK will have an import dependency of around 30%, and by 2020 it could rise to some 80%. To manage this change, new gas supply infrastructure is needed to increase our capacity to import, store and transport gas efficiently. A regulatory environment that enables the development of timely and appropriately sited infrastructure projects is vital. The need for increased gas supply infrastructure, and a regulatory environment to allow such infrastructure to be delivered to the market in a timely fashion, was set out by the Government in the Energy White Paper of 2003 (DTI 2005a): Our Energy Future - creating a low carbon economy. It identified four challenges, one of which was securing the reliability of energy supplies. This remains integral to an energy policy that meets the needs and expectations of all energy consumers. It was considered as part of the DTI's Energy Review (DTI 2006a) and will be addressed again in the forthcoming Energy White Paper. It is clear that any weakness in infrastructure could push up gas prices, or result in interruptions to supply, with harmful consequences for both UK industry and UK consumers...

Beschreibung: Historical studies on the exploration of SE Asia reveal interesting points concerning the geology and palaeontology of this part of the world: the first geological description of northern Laos was published in 1896 by the French geologist J. B. H. Counillon, a member of the famous Pavie Mission (1879-1895). Although scientific notes are rare in the literature about the Pavie Mission, which dealt with diplomacy and politics, Counillon's studies are very informative: they contain accurate observations on the geomorphology, hydrography, stratigraphy and palaeontology of the Mekong River and its banks. Counillon explored the dangerous region of Luang Prabang (northern Laos) with Captain Cupet. He discovered the first fossil tetrapods from Laos, and, with the help of Vasseur and Repelin, correctly referred them to dicynodont mammal-like reptiles.

Beschreibung: Trees are an obvious component of most landscapes. Artists' views of Mesozoic landscapes regularly feature modern trees such as firs (Abies and Picea) and monkey-puzzle trees (Araucaria araucana). However, these reconstructions are highly hypothetical and, in reality, very little is known about the silhouettes of Mesozoic trees. In Mesozoic (Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous) strata of Thailand, large conifer logs with different types of architecture are evident, a rare opportunity for architectural studies. Various methods to estimate the original diameter and height of the trees are assessed. Among our material some trees have the classical Christmas-tree shape, whereas others are more oak-like in silhouette. All these trees lived in forest environments. Tree shape is strongly related to environment, and is still under-used as a palaeoecological tool. Reconstructing trees and vegetation has wide implications, from evaluating dinosaur herbivory to calculating elements of the carbon cycle.

Beschreibung: This first overview of the bony fish record from the Jurassic and Cretaceous continental deposits of Thailand reveals a significant diversity, with 16 taxa in four formations (the Khlong Min, Phu Kradung, Sao Khua and Khok Kruat Fms). Four of these taxa have already been diagnosed and described, and a couple of others are sufficiently well preserved to be diagnosed in the future. The other taxa are represented at present by fragmentary and isolated remains. The highest diversity is observed among semionotids', which occur in the four formations. Sinamiids are represented by at least three taxa that occur only in the Sao Khua and the Khok Kruat Formations. Pycnodont fishes are known by rare and isolated dentitions and teeth in the Khlong Min and Sao Khua Formations, and lungfishes referred to Ferganoceratodus occur in the Khlong Min and the Phu Kradung Formations. The assemblages provide few palaeogeographical indications at present, except for evidence of relationships with China and Central Asia. However, it is expected than once the phylogenetic relationships of these taxa are resolved, we will be able to reconstruct precise palaeogeographical scenarios.

Beschreibung: In Laos, dicynodonts have long been known only from one specimen, now lost, a partial skull discovered by Counillon in the purple beds of the area of Luang Prabang, and initially described by Repelin as Dicynodon incisivum. Subsequent researchers attributed the specimen either to the Late Permian genus Dicynodon or to the Early Triassic genus Lystrosaurus. Recent Franco-Laotian expeditions have gathered, from the same purple beds, a collection of tetrapods composed mainly of dicynodonts. They can all be ascribed to Dicynodon, and the available evidence suggests that the purple beds are Late Permian in age. The genus Lystrosaurus remains unknown in Laos.

Beschreibung: We describe a new elasmobranch fauna from the lower part of the Khlong Min Formation in Thailand. The fauna includes Hybodus sp., Asteracanthus sp., Lonchidion reesunderwoodi sp. nov., Belemnobatis aominensis sp. nov., and possibly a second species of Belemnobatis. This fauna supports a Bathonian-Callovian age for the Khlong Min Formation, and suggests a close taxonomic relationship between the Middle Jurassic elasmobranch faunas of Europe and Thailand. The presence of a monolayered enameloid in Belemnobatis aominensis sp. nov. and other primitive batoids is interpreted as the retention of a primitive character for neoselachians, which would suggest a divergence time between the batoids and the rest of the neoselachian sharks as early as the Carboniferous-Permian boundary.

Beschreibung: A new skeleton of a sauropod dinosaur has been discovered in the Early Cretaceous Sao Khua Formation at Ban Na Khrai in Changwat Kalasin (NE Thailand). All sauropod bones from Ban Na Khrai share all their characteristics with the type specimen of Phuwiangosaurus sirindhornae Martin, Buffetaut & Suteethorn 1994. The 60% complete skeleton is very well preserved and includes cranial elements (a tooth, a frontal, a postorbital, a squamosal, both quadrates, and the braincase), whereas the type specimen is only 10% complete and consists of postcranial bones only. The material from Ban Na Khrai belongs to a single subadult individual of Phuwiangosaurus, as attested by the unfused neurocentral sutures of the vertebrae, which are firmly fused and larger in size in the holotypic specimen.

Beschreibung: Most Mesozoic vertebrate species are represented by scarce and incomplete specimens, preventing statistical studies of morphometric features. Moreover, rich vertebrate assemblages are rarely excavated in conditions that allow taphonomical studies. Lepidotes buddhabutrensis is a common species found in the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous locality of Phu Nam Jun, Phu Kradung Formation, in NE Thailand. Individuals, collected during systematic excavation since 2002, show great variations in preservation states and body postures. In this paper we study the mode of variation of morphometric features of the fish population, the growth mode, and the relationship between morphology and size. We assess the range of variation in preservation and taphonomy, based on arbitrarily defined scales, to test if vertical variations occur in the sample of individuals within the site. We test possible favoured orientation of specimens within the assemblage. In contrast to preliminary field observations, statistical analyses show that all individuals belong to a single Gaussian population and that gross morphological shape variations are related only to size during fish growth. L. buddhabutrensis shows a positive allometric growth for the pectoral to dorsal, and pectoral to anal fin distances, and a negative allometric growth for the unpaired fins (dorsal and anal fins lengths). We detected no relationships between the vertical location of the fishes within the fossiliferous deposit and the body shape of the specimens, nor between the state of preservation and the taphonomy, but there are significant differences in the state of preservation according to the position of the fishes in the fossiliferous deposit. The occurrence of a single Gaussian population and the absence of morphological and preservational variations through the depositional column are evidence that the fish assemblage is probably the result of a single mass mortality event. The apparent diversity in morphology is probably due to variations in the mode of preservation. The fish appear to have been oriented by a current at the time of deposition at the top of the fossiliferous deposit only.

Beschreibung: The turtle assemblages from the Khorat Group consist mainly of trionychoids. They include the primitive Trionychoidae Basilochelys and basal eucryptodiran turtles from the Phu Kradung Formation (?Late Jurassic); the adocid Isanemys srisuki, the carettochelyid Kizylkumemys sp. and undetermined Trionychoidea from the Sao Khua Formation (Early Cretaceous); and the carettochelyid Kizylkumemys khoratensis and the adocid Shachemys sp. from the Khok Kruat Formation (Aptian). Our study shows some faunal links between the turtle faunas from the Khorat Group and those from the peripheral regions of Asia during the time span of the Khorat Group. Thus the coastal regions of Asia, and more particularly SE Asia, may have been important places for the origin and early diversification of the trionychoids.

Beschreibung: Tracks of small quadrupedal ornithischians with five manual and four pedal digits have been recorded from sedimentary rocks near the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous (Tithonian-Berriasian) boundary in NE Thailand and British Columbia. These are compared with larger tracks of gracile, quadrupedal ornithopods from the earliest Cretaceous of Spain and smaller tracks of a quadruped of unknown age from Zimbabwe. The Thai and Canadian tracks are similar to the Early Jurassic (Liassic) ichnogenus Anomoepus and the small ornithopod tracks from the Late Jurassic of Spain. They are the only known post-Liassic ornithischian tracks in which up to five discrete manus digit impressions are clearly visible. Based on strong heteropody (manus much smaller than pes) in all cases we infer an ornithopod trackmaker rather than another ornithischian. The scattered, but widespread earliest Cretaceous occurrence of this ichnotaxon, herein assigned to Neoanomoepus perigrinatus ichnogen. and ichnosp. nov., on the basis of type material from Canada, suggests that these hitherto unknown earliest Cretaceous ichnofaunas may represent a radiation of small basal ornithopods (pes length less than 15 cm), appearing before the widespread radiation of large ornithopods (pes length up to 60 cm or more) later in the Neocomian (Valanginian-Barremian), Aptian-Albian and Late Cretaceous. The primitive condition of the trackmaker is indicated by the pedal and manual morphology, which consists of four and five digits respectively that are not enclosed by well-developed fleshy padding or integument. In contrast, all larger Cretaceous ornithopod tracks, mostly from post-Berriasian strata, have only three pedal digits enclosed in fleshy pads and a manus in which all functional digits are reduced and enclosed by substantial flesh.

Beschreibung: Postcranial remains of a small theropod dinosaur, including vertebrae, incomplete pubes, tibiae, an incomplete fibula, metatarsals and phalanges, from the Early Cretaceous Sao Khua Formation of Phu Wiang, Khon Kaen Province, NE Thailand, are described as a new taxon of ornithomimosaur, Kinnareemimus khonkaenensis, gen. et sp. nov. This early ostrich dinosaur' is characterized by a fairly advanced metatarsus, in which metatarsal III, although still visible proximally between metatarsals II and IV in cranial view, is markedly pinched' more distally and becomes triangular in cross-section. The condition of its metatarsus shows that Kinnareemimus khonkaenensis is more derived than the geologically younger primitive ornithomimosaurs Harpymimus and Garudimimus, but less derived than Archaeornithomimus. Its occurrence in the Early Cretaceous of Thailand suggests that advanced ornithomimosaurs may have originated in Asia.

Beschreibung: This volume grew particularly out of two meetings held in 2006 (European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2006, Session TS4.4, ‘3000 years of earthquake ground effects in Europe: geological analysis of active faults and benefits for hazard assessment’, Vienna, Austria, April 2006; and the ICTP/IAEA workshop on ‘The conduct of seismic hazard analyses for critical facilities’, Trieste, Italy, May 2006) that brought together geoscientists who have explored and studied palaeoseismicity and its environmental effects in several parts of the world. This publication contains 18 papers based on a selection of presentations, and addresses a wide range of topics related to both a) palaeoseismological studies, and b) the assessment of a new macroseismic intensity scale based only on the natural phenomena associated with an earthquake, that is the ESI 2007 scale. In 1999, during the 15th INQUA (International Union for Quaternary Research) Congress in Durban, the Subcommission on Palaeoseismicity promoted the compilation of a new scale of macroseismic intensity based only on environmental effects. A working group including geologists, seismologists and engineers compiled a first version of the scale that was presented at the 16th INQUA Congress in Reno in 2003, and updated one year later at the 32nd International Geological Congress in Florence (Michetti et al. 2004). To this end, the INQUA TERPRO (Commission on Terrestrial Processes) approved a specific project (INQUA Scale Project 2007). The revised version was ratified during the 17th INQUA Congress in Cairns in 2007. This revised version of the scale, which is...

Beschreibung: The comparison of intensity assessments based on macroseismic data and Earthquake Environmental Effects (EEE) is presented. Specific problems faced when assessing intensities using different types of scales are discussed. Two case studies of recent earthquakes with magnitudes MS=7.4 (Altai, 2003, and Neftegorsk, 1995) are used to illustrate the applicability of the INQUA EEE scale. The Altai earthquake was accompanied by surface faulting of c. 70 km length and up to 2 m of horizontal and 70 cm of vertical offset; secondary EEE were observed over 3000 km2. The dominant type of surface faulting during the Neftegorsk earthquake was strike-slip. The length of surface faulting was up to 46 km, maximum horizontal offset was 8.1 m, and average offset coherent with seismic moment was 3.9 m; secondary EEE were observed occasionally at considerable distance from the epicentre on wet seashore sands. Application of the INQUA scale shows the epicentral intensity of the Altai earthquake to be X degrees. Most consistent with all types of data (rupture length, maximum and average offsets) intensity assessment for the Neftegorsk earthquake which is within the X-XI degree range. Taking into account environmental effects in intensity scales is an essential requirement: it follows from the complex nature of an earthquake impact, which spans a very broad frequency range, including static deformations. The case studies illustrate that the intensity assessment of an earthquake, based only on damage to buildings, will be essentially incomplete.

Beschreibung: The INQUA Environmental Seismic intensity scale (ESI 2007 scale) is a new seismic intensity scale proposed by the Subcommission on Palaeoseismology, INQUA, based on seismically induced ground effects. This intensity scale is expected to be useful for evaluation of detailed areal distribution of seismic intensity and also for the evaluation of intensity of palaeoearthquakes. We selected four great earthquakes to map ESI 2007 scale distribution: the 1995 Kobe; the 2004 Chuetsu, Japan; the 1935 Hsinchu-Taichung; and the 1999 Chichi, Taiwan. Proposed ESI 2007 scale maps from these areas are the mesh maps with a grid of about 1 km2, showing more detailed intensity patterns than those previously provided by the Japan Meteorological Agency and the Central Weather Bureau for the four areas. Different responses of ground effects to the earthquakes, depending on local differences of geological materials near the surface and morphological condition of each site, are more clearly expressed by the ESI 2007 scale map, because of the large number of observed sites by the evaluation of ESI 2007 scale. Calibration exercise also reveals, however, that the classification of ESI 2007 scale needs some improvement.

Beschreibung: Bone histology is the most comprehensive way of obtaining data on growth and life history for dinosaurs. Humeri and femora of the basal titanosaur Phuwiangosaurus sirindhornae from the Early Cretaceous of Thailand were sampled by core drilling. The sample represents growth series with humeri ranging in size from 71.0 to 110.0 cm and femora ranging in size from 38.5 to 112.0 cm. The bone tissue is continuously growing laminar fibro-lamellar bone typical for virtually all sauropods. Several ontogenetic stages can be distinguished, and a general growth pattern is deduced on the basis of different-sized individuals. Humeri differ from femora in generally showing more remodelling by secondary osteons.

Beschreibung: Based on tectonic, lithological and biotic features, 11 regions may be recognized in the Devonian Period of China. The Junggar and Hinggan regions are characterized by thick sequences of clastic rocks associated with volcanic rocks; carbonate deposits were only local, sometimes consisting of isolated reefs. The Tarim region was characterized by intertidal sandstones on the platform and deeper water deposits in its marginal areas. The North China region was mostly barren of Devonian deposits except in some marginal areas, and the Qilian-Qaidam region was a mountainous region mostly with Middle and Upper Devonian continental sediments. Qinling Region was closely related with the South China Region in terms of faunal affinity, probably being a marginal area of the South China Plate. Western Yunnan and the major part of Xizang (including northern Xizang and the northern slope of the Himalayas) featured continuous Silurian-Devonian deposition, generally with carbonates in the Lower Devonian, and different lithologies in different regions for the Middle and Late Devonian. Qinling and Hoh Xil-Bayan Har regions were closely related with the South China Region, yielding common fossils such as brachiopods Stringocephalus and Yunnanella (= Nayunnella) faunas. The Devonian Period of South China comprised deposits of two large transgressive-regressive cycles: Lochkovian to Eifelian and late Eifelian to about the end of the Devonian Period.

Beschreibung: The Himalayas in northern Pakistan have been the site of several disastrous earthquakes of moderate to high intensity. The 8 October 2005 Muzaffarabad earthquake, with magnitude Mw 7.6, occurred in the NW Himalayan Fold and Thrust Belt at 08:50:38 local time. The epicentre of the main shock was located 19 km NE of Muzaffarabad. This earthquake took a death toll of more than 80 000 human lives and caused widespread destruction in Kashmir and north Pakistan, particularly in the towns of Muzaffarabad, Bagh, Rawalakot, Mansehra, Balakot, Abbottabad and Batgram. Based on the information obtained from print and electronic media (and for some areas from field studies), an intensity of X (MMI scale) has been assigned at the epicentral location including the localities of Muzaffarabad and Balakot. Epicentral distribution of 300 aftershocks indicates that more than one tectonic subdivision of the fold belt have experienced instability. Focal depths indicate that most activity is confined to a narrow depth range (5-20 km). Further extension of the Indus Kohistan Seismic Zone in the Hazara-Kashmir syntaxial area and activation of more than one fault seem to be the cause of this seismic activity, as suggested by the focal mechanism of the main event and depth distribution of the aftershocks. About 100 large landslides caused by active faulting have been observed in the rupture zones near Balakot, Muzaffarabad, Kardalla, Hattian Bala, Sarain, Sunddangali and Bagh, through field studies and satellite images.

Beschreibung: The stratigraphical approach and geological mapping of William Smith in England and Georges Cuvier in France gave birth to modern geology. However, before 1815 neither used the word geology', a term first coined by Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1603. At the turn of the nineteenth century most leading geoscientists were based in France and Germany, but those in Britain were poised to take over the lead. After three centuries of dominance in science and geology, was Italian geology in decline? A review of the works of Italian geologists and the role these played in disseminating Italian geological research has been undertaken to examine this question. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars shocked the Italian states, disrupted the economic order and discontinued the progress of science. Nevertheless, from 1759 to 1859 over 40 classic papers in geology were published in Italy. Among them, Gian Battista Brocchi's Conchiologia Fossile is the most renowned for having inspired Charles Lyell's work. In the middle decades of the nineteenth century Italian geoscientists made up the majority of foreign members of both the French and English geological societies. The Italian Geological Society was not formed until 1881. This was largely due to the earlier political fragmentation of Italy into many small states.

Beschreibung: Today, when referring to the relationship between geology and religion, people usually think immediately of Christian (and other) fundamentalists and their chronic palaeontological illiteracy leading to creationism, to intelligent design, and to a distrust of science in general and especially geology, palaeontology and evolutionary biology.1 Thus the relationship of geology and religion is usually considered to be under strain. However, outside this very specific field of conflict, there does not seem to be a relationship at all. Among geologists, as well as among other scientists, it is not customary to talk about one's faith, and so it is hard to tell whether a colleague is practising a religious faith or at least adhering to it in private, or whether he or she wishes to be counted among atheists or agnostics. Such knowledge does not seem to be relevant to our joint scientific efforts. Geology as well as other sciences operates from a methodological naturalism, regardless of whether one is an atheist, theist, or something else. Centuries of observation, collection and experiment have taught us to trust these methods. We no longer expect disruptive miracles to upset the chain of natural causes and consequences. This is not because of any system of belief or disbelief, it is simply from experience, and we certainly have come a long way on this basis...

Beschreibung: The paper considers issues arising when historians of different theological persuasions write about geologists whose religious principles influenced their geological work. For illustrative purposes, three accounts of the work of Jean-Andre de Luc are discussed, written by a freethinker (Charles Gillispie); an Anglican (Martin Rudwick); and two co-authors, one a Calvinist (Francois Ellenberger) and the other an atheist (Gabriel Gohau). The issue of understanding or empathizing (or otherwise) with one's subject in writing the history of geology is raised. It is suggested that the accounts of de Luc discussed here show the marks of the religious views of the different historians. In discussing this suggestion, the concepts of emic' and etic' from cultural anthropology are deployed. (These terms indicate, respectively, an insider's' or an outsider's' approach to a subject.) Older geological writings commonly reflected their authors' religious perspectives; but this is much less common in modern work. Therefore the science-religion issue will become of less importance for historians writing about the history of geology for the twentieth century onwards.

Beschreibung: Water was a key element in the Inca civilization (c. AD 1438-1534), both for their crops and as part of their vision of the cosmos. According to myths on the origin of the Incas, their civilization arose from the sea through one of its main manifestations, Lake Titicaca. Throughout the period of Inca dominance, as in some of the cultures that preceded them, water was a sacred element. This vision of the cosmos can be regarded as a hydrogeological model with similarities to the beliefs in force in Europe from the classical period until the end of the seventeenth century. Because of their excellent intuitive understanding of water, the Incas developed a complex irrigation system to channel water to their agricultural lands. Coinciding with the distribution of water, they organized periodical thanksgiving festivals, when farming communities gathered to celebrate the beginning of a new agricultural cycle with songs, dances and festivities. However, the centralized control of water resources introduced in the twentieth century led to the disappearance of many of these traditions and to the replacement of an irrigation system that had proved acceptable, by one that was alien to the customs and history of the country people. This led to the first conflicts over water control. As a result, the vision of the cosmos based on water and rooted in agricultural communities has been lost.

Beschreibung: Pre-Meiji Japan was a religiously rich and intellectually varied country, where a large number of theories and beliefs about the origin of the Earth and its features coexisted. The history of science, and the history of geology in particular, lacks an account of this fertile and stimulating socio-cultural system and intellectual environment. The present paper aims to contribute to its understanding, by providing an overview of the most influential religious and scholarly approaches to geological topics in Japan from the eighth century to 1868. The comparison of explanations and beliefs on subjects such as fossils, volcanic eruptions, mountains and the origin of the Earth, and the analysis of geological expertise confirm the heterodox and holistic tendency of the Japanese intellectual and religious environment, which has had positive and negative outcomes for scientific thinking. It also reveals the importance of power structures, and of the social division of labour and knowledge, in the shaping of the Japanese intellectual and religious history.

Beschreibung: During the second half of the nineteenth century and in the early years of the twentieth century the debate on the Darwinian evolutionary theory also involved the Italian scientific community. One of the lesser known results of the controversy there was the defence of creationism, often supported by the resort to the biblical Flood, in some Italian publications on geological sciences. The authors of such writings were naturalists and geologists, but also clerics and parish priests interested in the Earth sciences. They published a wide range of books, booklets and papers, particularly between 1870 and 1905. The aim of this paper is to analyse some interesting examples of this submerged' and heterogeneous literature, so as to understand the possible extent of its influence on the general public, as well as the level of integration between scientific knowledge, geological practice and reference to the Bible, during a period that is usually regarded as a time of separation between Genesis and geology.

Beschreibung: The Protestant understanding of creation in relation to science has been slightly different from that described for the Catholic churches and more diverse, as Protestants emphasize the authority of the Bible and private judgement. The conflict thesis of science and religion is rejected, but there were four skirmishes: over heliocentricity, the rise of geology, evolution and, today, the impact of creationism. The variety of belief among Protestants, and especially Anglicans, is expounded from non-realism, which denies the existence of God, to critical realism, in its liberal and conservative forms, which totally accept modern science, to naive' realism, which emphasizes the plain, or literal, reading of the Bible and rejects evolution and, often, geological time, and has given rise to creationism'. Representative examples of each are introduced.

Beschreibung: Geology has been part of the curriculum at Wheaton College, Illinois, since it was established in 1860 as a non-denominational, Christian liberal arts college. The school continues to maintain a strong identity with evangelical Christian theology and subculture. The first president Jonathan Blanchard recruited George Frederick Barker to teach geology and natural history on the personal recommendations of the renowned geologists Agassiz, Silliman and Hitchcock. Barker taught at Wheaton for only one year, and was followed by a succession of other young scientists who kept geology in the curriculum to the end of the nineteenth century. These teachers respected the geological evidence for an ancient Earth and interpreted the creation days in Genesis 1 as representing extended epochs of God's creative activity. In the early twentieth century, Professors James Bole and L. Allen Higley harmonized mainstream geological history and the Bible through the gap or ruin-restoration interpretation, wherein eons of geological time preceded six days of Edenic re-creation only thousands of years ago. Higley's background in geology, his role in recruiting additional science faculty staff, and his influence among fundamentalists set the stage for the acceptance by subsequent Wheaton geologists of mainstream geology and their rejection of emerging popular fundamentalist ideas about a six day creation and Flood geology. Geology was established as a major subject in 1935 and an independent Geology Department was established in 1958. Geology education at Wheaton College was profoundly influenced by the tension over creation issues in the evangelical subculture, and different models for understanding the relationship between science and Christian theology have been employed by teachers and students.

Beschreibung: This paper aims to facilitate understanding of the most radical form of contemporary creationism by describing the principal motivations of its adherents from the perspective of a former insider. Creationism that produces and promotes accounts of natural history that differ radically from conventional accounts--made up of so-called biblical' or young-Earth' creationists, anti-evolutionists' and Flood geologists'--is herein called theodicic creationism'. Theodicic creationism is primarily concerned with defending God against the charge that he is responsible for natural evil; in other words, it is engaged in the production of a form of theodicy. Rather than accepting modern scientific accounts of natural history and then argue that these are compatible with the goodness of God, however, theodicic creationists conclude that conventional natural histories are not compatible with their view of God. They therefore begin with belief in a benevolent Creator and set out to produce an account of natural history that is compatible with it. Because almost any natural history will do for their purposes if it can shift the burden of responsibility for natural evil from divine to human shoulders, theodicic creationists are a relatively cohesive group, despite deep disagreements about the age of the Earth, the extent and role of Noah's Flood, the extent and role of evolution, and even the nature of the Bible.

Beschreibung: The Mediterranean and northern Arabian regions provide a unique natural laboratory to constrain geodynamics associated with arc-continent and continent-continent collision and subsequent orogenic collapse by analysing regional and temporal distributions of the various elements in the geological archive. This book combines thirteen new contributions that highlight timing and distribution of the Cretaceous to Recent evolution of the Calabrian, Carpathian, Aegean and Anatolian segments of the Africa-Arabia-Eurasia subduction zone. These are subdivided into five papers documenting the timing and kinematics of Cretaceous arc-continent collision, and Eocene and Miocene continent-continent collision in Anatolia, with westward extrusion of Anatolia as a result. Eight papers provide an overview and new data from stratigraphy, structure, metamorphism and magmatism, covering the geological consequences of the largely Neogene collapse that characterizes the segments of interest, in response to late stage reorganization of the subduction zone, and the roll-back and break-off of (segments of) the subducting slab.

Beschreibung: For Elie Bertrand (1713-1797) and his like-minded contemporaries, God's design and providence set the stage for understanding the workings of the Earth. Bertrand used various methods, including field observations, to accumulate considerable geological knowledge, which he published in his Dictionnaire universel des fossiles (1763) and Recueil de divers traites sur l'histoire naturelle (1766). By examining Bertrand's life and writings, we may come to appreciate the strengths and shortcomings of his visions of the natural world. His focus on collecting, cataloguing, and classifying natural objects and phenomena fitted the classic concept of natural history in his era. On the basis of his observations, he dared to systematize and theorize. His work provides a window on his time and on attempts of natural theologians then to understand the products and operation of the world. Once a counsellor to the King of Poland, a correspondent of Voltaire, and a contributor to the Encyclopedie, Bertrand's name has largely vanished from view. His hope to observe the world of nature so as to comprehend the word of God yielded constructive results but did not succeed in fulfilling natural theology's boldest aspirations.

Beschreibung: The Tauride-Anatolide continent, stretching for c. 900 km across western and central Turkey, is one of the world's best example of a subducted, exhumed passive margin within a collisional orogen. Twelve widely separated areas were studied and correlated to develop a new plate-tectonic model. A metamorphosed, rifted continental margin of Triassic-Lower Cretaceous age (Tauride-Anatolide platform) is overlain by Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian-Lower Maastrichtian) pelagic sediments and then by both tectonic melange (subduction complexes) and sedimentary melange (foredeep gravity complexes). The melanges are overthrust by unmetamorphosed ophiolitic rocks, commonly peridotites with swarms of diabase/gabbro dykes, and are underlain by metamorphic soles. New geochemical evidence from basaltic blocks in the melange indicates predominantly subduction influenced, within-plate and mid-ocean ridge-type settings. The dykes cutting the ophiolites were probably intruded during early-stage intra-oceanic arc genesis. The metamorphosed continental margin, melanges and ophiolites in the north (Anatolides) are correlated with unmetamorphosed equivalents in the Taurides further south (e.g. Bey[s]ehir and Lycian nappes). Oceanic crust of Triassic-Late Cretaceous age formed between the Gondwana-related Tauride-Anatolide continent in the south and the Eurasia-related Sakarya microcontinent in the north. Following Late Triassic-Early Cretaceous passive margin subsidence, the continental margin was covered by Cenomanian-Turonian pelagic carbonates (c. 98-90 Ma). Ophiolites formed in an intra-oceanic subduction zone setting in response to northward subduction, probably within a two-stranded ocean, with the Inner Tauride ocean in the SE and the [I]zmir-Ankara-Erzincan ocean in the north/NW. Metamorphic soles relate to intra-oceanic subduction (c. 95-90 Ma). Oceanic sedimentary/igneous rocks accreted to the advancing supra-subduction oceanic slab. The Tauride-Anatolide continental margin then underwent diachronous collision with the trench (c. 85 Ma), deeply subducted and metamorphosed at HP/LT (c. 80 Ma). Accretionary, ophiolitic and exhumed HP/LT rocks were gravity reworked into a southward-migrating flexural foredeep and progressively overridden (c. 70-63 Ma). Slices of the upper part of the platform and its margin detached and were thrust southwards as the (Tauride) Lycian and Bey[s]ehir nappes, together with regional-scale ophiolites. The continental margin and melange were simultaneously exhumed during Maastrichtian-Early Paleocene (70-63 Ma) and transgressed by shallow-water sediments, beginning in the Late Maastrichtian in the east (c. 64 Ma) and the Mid?-Late Paleocene (c. 60 Ma) further west. Remnant oceanic crust was consumed during Early Cenozoic time, followed by Mid Eocene (45-40 Ma) diachronous continental collision and a second phase of regional deformation. Rather than being progressive there were two stages of collision: first, Upper Cretaceous ophiolite emplacement driven by continental margin-subduction trench collision, and secondly Eocene collision of the Tauride and Sakarya/Eurasian continents.

Beschreibung: The deformation and 40Ar-39Ar dating of recent volcanism, that remarkably sits across the North Anatolian Fault eastern termination in Turkey, together with previous studies, put strong constraints on the long-term evolution of the fault. We argue that after a first phase of 10 Ma, characterized by a slip rate of about 3 mm/a, and during which most of the trace was established, the slip rate jumped to about 20 mm/a on average over the last 2.5 Ma, without substantial increase of the fault length. The transition correlates with a change in the geometry at the junction with the East Anatolian Fault that makes the extrusion process more efficient.

Beschreibung: Post-collisional magmatism in western Anatolia began in the Eocene, and has occurred in discrete pulses throughout the Cenozoic as it propagated from north to south, producing volcano-plutonic associations with varying chemical compositions. This apparent SW migration of magmatism and accompanying extension through time was a result of the thermally induced collapse of the western Anatolian orogenic belt, which formed during the collision of the Sakarya and Tauride-Anatolide continental blocks in the late Paleocene. The thermal input and melt sources for this prolonged magmatism were provided first by slab break-off-generated aesthenospheric flow, then by lithospheric delamination-related aesthenospheric flow, followed by tectonic extension-driven upward aesthenospheric flow. The first magmatic episode is represented by Eocene granitoid plutons and their extrusive carapace that are linearly distributed along the Izmir-Ankara suture zone south of the Marmara Sea. These suites show moderately evolved compositions enriched in incompatible elements similar to subduction zone-influenced subalkaline magmas. Widespread Oligo-Miocene volcanic and plutonic rocks with medium- to high-K calc-alkaline compositions represent the next magmatic episode. Partial melting and assimilation-fractional crystallization of enriched subcontinental lithospheric mantle-derived magmas were important processes in the genesis and evolution of the parental magmas, which experienced decreasing subduction influence and increasing crustal contamination during the evolution of the Eocene and Oligo-Miocene volcano-plutonic rocks. Collision-induced lithospheric slab break-off provided an influx of aesthenospheric heat and melts that resulted in partial melting of the previously subduction-metasomatized mantle lithosphere beneath the suture zone, producing the Eocene and Oligo-Miocene igneous suites. The following magmatic phase during the middle Miocene (16-14 Ma) developed mildly alkaline bimodal volcanic rocks that show a decreasing amount of crustal contamination and subduction influence in time. Both melting of a subduction-modified lithospheric mantle and aesthenospheric mantle-derived melt contribution played a significant role in the generation of the magmas of these rocks. This magmatic episode was attended by region-wide extension that led to the formation of metamorphic core complexes and graben systems. Aesthenospheric upwelling caused by partial delamination of the lithospheric root beneath the western Anatolian orogenic belt was likely responsible for the melt evolution of these mildly alkaline volcanics. Lithospheric delamination may have been caused by peeling off' during slab rollback. The last major phase of magmatism in the region, starting c.12 Ma, is represented by late Miocene to Quaternary alkaline to super-alkaline volcanic rocks that show OIB-like geochemical features with progressively more potassic compositions increasing toward south in time. These rocks are spatially associated with major extensional fault systems that acted as natural conduits for the transport of uncontaminated alkaline magmas to the surface. The melt source for this magmatic phase carried little or no subduction component and was produced by the decompressional melting of aesthenospheric mantle, which flowed in beneath the attenuated continental lithosphere in the Aegean extensional province. This time-progressive evolution of Cenozoic magmatism and extension in western Anatolia has been strongly controlled by the interplay between regional plate-tectonic events and the mantle dynamics, and provides a realistic template for post-collisional magmatism and crustal extension in many orogenic belts.

Beschreibung: The Apennine belt represents a typical orogenic segment of the western Mediterranean, characterized by the tectonic convergence between European and Africa plates after oceanic subduction. Both oceanic- and continent-derived metamorphic complexes, considered as the remnants of the subduction-exhumation cycle, crop out in the inner sectors of the Apennine belt, where extensional deformation has dominated since the Early Oligocene. We review the available structural, metamorphic and geochronological data coming from these metamorphic complexes in order to provide a kinematics reconstruction accounting for the tectono-metamorphic evolution of the Apennines, from oceanic subduction to final extensional reworking. During the Eocene, oceanic rocks were progressively subducted down to eclogite-facies conditions following a subduction-type metamorphic gradient. The transition from oceanic- to continental-subduction was coeval with a transition from subduction-type to Barrovian-type metamorphic gradient. Continental collision, at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, post-dated the syn-orogenic exhumation of HP-rocks and was synchronous with the onset of post-orogenic extension in the hinterland domains. Extensional deformation migrated to the east, following the forelandward migration of the thrust system at the trench. The concomitance of extension and compression is here related to fast rollback of the subducting plate and delamination of the lithospheric mantle below the subducted continental crust. Implications on how the subduction tectonics, syn-orogenic exhumation and post-orogenic extension could have controlled the circulation of HP-rocks in the developing Apennines are also discussed.

Beschreibung: The Mid-Cimmerian tectonic event of Bajocian age can be documented all across the Iran Plate (Alborz Mountains of northern Iran, NE Iran, east-central Iran) and the southern Koppeh Dagh (northeastern Iran). In the Alborz area, the tectonic event consisted of two main pulses. A distinct unconformity (near the Lower-Upper Bajocian boundary) at or near the base of the Dansirit Formation is the sedimentary expression of rapid basin shallowing due to uplift and erosion. Another unconformity is developed in the early Upper Bajocian, close to or at the top of the Dansirit Formation. Locally, it is expressed as an angular unconformity due to block rotation and is overlain by a thin transgressive conglomerate followed by silty marls of the deep-marine Upper Bajocian-Callovian Dalichai Formation. This upper unconformity signals a rapid subsidence pulse. On the Tabas Block of east-central Iran, a single unconformity can be documented that is time-equivalent to those bounding the Dansirit Formation (i.e. mid-Bajocian'). Local folding gives direct evidence of compressional tectonics, and conglomerates indicate subaerial denudation of older Mesozoic or Palaeozoic strata. After a stratigraphic gap, transgressive sediments of ?Late Bajocian-Bathonian age follow, suggesting a fusion of the lower and upper Mid-Cimmerian unconformities in east-central Iran. Along the southern margin of the Koppeh Dagh Mountains (NE Iran), a Late Bajocian subsidence pulse initiated the opening of the strongly subsiding Kashafrud Basin, an eastwards extension of the South Caspian Basin. In all of these areas, one phase of uplift and erosion took place followed by a pronounced pulse of subsidence running counter to trends of the eustatic sea-level curve. Thus, what is generally understood as the Mid-Cimmerian tectonic event is now thought to consist of a tectonic phase, confined to the Bajocian. This phase is explained as the expression of the onset of sea-floor spreading within the South Caspian Basin situated to the north of the present-day Alborz Mountains. This strongly subsiding basin developed close to the Palaeotethys suture during the Toarcian-Aalenian and went through a change from the rifting- to the spreading-stage during the Bajocian. The Mid-Cimmerian event therefore reflects the break-up unconformity of the South Caspian Basin.

Beschreibung: New fieldwork was carried out in the central and eastern Alborz, addressing the sedimentary succession from the Pennsylvanian to the Early Triassic. A regional synthesis is proposed, based on sedimentary analysis and a wide collection of new palaeontological data. The Moscovian Qezelqaleh Formation, deposited in a mixed coastal marine and alluvial setting, is present in a restricted area of the eastern Alborz, transgressing on the Lower Carboniferous Mobarak and Dozdehband formations. The late Gzhelian-early Sakmarian Dorud Group is instead distributed over most of the studied area, being absent only in a narrow belt to the SE. The Dorud Group is typically tripartite, with a terrigenous unit in the lower part (Toyeh Formation), a carbonate intermediate part (Emarat and Ghosnavi formations, the former particularly rich in fusulinids), and a terrigenous upper unit (Shah Zeid Formation), which however seems to be confined to the central Alborz. A major gap in sedimentation occurred before the deposition of the overlying Ruteh Limestone, a thick package of packstone-wackestone interpreted as a carbonate ramp of Middle Permian age (Wordian-Capitanian). The Ruteh Limestone is absent in the eastern part of the range, and everywhere ends with an emersion surface, that may be karstified or covered by a lateritic soil. The Late Permian transgression was directed southwards in the central Alborz, where marine facies (Nesen Formation) are more common. Time-equivalent alluvial fans with marsh intercalations and lateritic soils (Qeshlaq Formation) are present in the east. Towards the end of the Permian most of the Alborz emerged, the marine facies being restricted to a small area on the Caspian side of the central Alborz. There, the Permo-Triassic boundary interval is somewhat similar to the Abadeh-Shahreza belt in central Iran, and contains oolites, flat microbialites and domal stromatolites, forming the base of the Elikah Formation. The P-T boundary is established on the basis of conodonts, small foraminifera and stable isotope data. The development of the lower and middle part of the Elikah Formation, still Early Triassic in age, contains vermicular bioturbated mudstone/wackestone, and anachronostic-facies-like gastropod oolites and flat pebble conglomerates. Three major factors control the sedimentary evolution. The succession is in phase with global sea-level curve in the Moscovian and from the Middle Permian upwards. It is out of phase around the Carboniferous-Permian boundary, when the Dorud Group was deposited during a global lowstand of sealevel. When the global deglaciation started in the Sakmarian, sedimentation stopped in the Alborz and the area emerged. Therefore, there is a consistent geodynamic control. From the Middle Permian upwards, passive margin conditions control the sedimentary evolution of the basin, which had its depocentre(s) to the north. Climate also had a significant role, as the Alborz drifted quickly northwards with other central Iran blocks towards the Turan active margin. It passed from a southern latitude through the aridity belt in the Middle Permian, across the equatorial humid belt in the Late Permian and reached the northern arid tropical belt in the Triassic.

Beschreibung: A combination of fieldwork, basin analysis and modelling techniques has been used to try and understand the role, as well as the timing, of the subsidence-uplift mechanisms that have affected the Azerbaijan region of the South Caspian Basin (SCB) from Mesozoic to Recent. Key outcrops have been studied in the eastern Greater Caucasus, and the region has been divided into several major tectonic zones that are diagnostic of different former sedimentary realms representing a complete traverse from a passive margin setting to slope and distal basin environments. Subsequent deformation has caused folds and thrusts that generally trend from NW-SE to WNW-ESE. Offshore data has been analysed to provide insights into the regional structural and stratigraphic evolution of the SCB to the east of Azerbaijan. Several structural trends and subsidence patterns have been identified within the study area. In addition, burial history modelling suggests that there are at least three main components of subsidence, including a relatively short-lived basin-wide event at 6 Ma that is characterized by a rapid increase in the rate of subsidence. Numerical modelling that includes structural, thermal, isostatic and surface processes has been applied to the SCB. Models that reconcile the observed amount of fault-controlled deformation with the magnitude of overall thinning of the crust generate a comparable amount of subsidence to that observed in the basin. In addition, model results support the tectonic scenario that SCB crust has a density that is compatible with an oceanic composition and is being under-thrust beneath the central Caspian region.

Beschreibung: New Late Ordovician and Triassic palaeomagnetic data from Iran are presented. These data, in conjunction with data from the literature, provide insights on the drift history of Iran as part of Cimmeria during the Ordovician-Triassic. A robust agreement of palaeomagnetic poles of Iran and West Gondwana is observed for the Late Ordovician-earliest Carboniferous, indicating that Iran was part of Gondwana during that time. Data for the Late Permian-early Early Triassic indicate that Iran resided on subequatorial palaeolatitudes, clearly disengaged from the parental Gondwanan margin in the southern hemisphere. Since the late Early Triassic, Iran has been located in the northern hemisphere close to the Eurasian margin. This northward drift brought Iran to cover much of the Palaeotethys in approximately 35 Ma, at an average plate speed of c. 7-8 cm year-1, and was in part coeval to the transformation of Pangaea from an Irvingian B to a Wegenerian A-type configuration.

Beschreibung: An important, 2.4 km-thick Triassic succession is exposed at Nakhlak (central Iran). This succession was deformed during the Cimmerian orogeny and truncated by an angular unconformity with undeformed Upper Cretaceous sediments. This integrated stratigraphic study of the Triassic included bed-by-bed sampling for ammonoids, conodonts and bivalves, as well as limestone and sandstone petrographic analyses. The Nakhlak Group succession consists of three formations: Alam (Olenekian-Anisian), B[a]qoroq (?Upper Anisian-Ladinian) and Ashin (Upper Ladinian). The Alam Formation records several shifts from carbonate to siliciclastic deposition, the B[a]qoroq Formation consists of continental conglomerates and the Ashin Formation documents the transition to deep-sea turbiditic sedimentation. Petrographic composition has been studied for sandstones and conglomerates. Provenance analysis for Alam and most of the Ashin samples suggests a volcanic arc setting, whereas the samples from the B[a]qoroq Formation are related to exhumation of a metamorphic basement. The provenance data, together with the great thickness, the sudden change of facies, the abundance of volcaniclastic supply, the relatively common occurrence of tuffitic layers and the orogenic calc-alkaline affinity of the volcanism, point to sedimentation along an active margin in a forearc setting. A comparison between the Triassic of Nakhlak and the Triassic succession exposed in the erosional window of Aghdarband (Koppeh Dag, NE Iran) indicates that both were deposited along active margins. However, they do not show the same type of evolution. Nakhlak and Aghdarband have quite different ammonoid faunal affinities during the Early Triassic, but similar faunal composition from the Bithynian to Late Ladinian. These results argue against the location of Nakhlak close to Aghdarband.

Beschreibung: New zircon and apatite fission-track ages obtained on samples from all lithotectonic units exposed on Naxos Island are presented. Zircon ages of the exhumed metamorphic rocks range from 25.2 to 9.3 Ma and from 13.0 to 6.4 Ma for apatite. Zircon track-length analysis distinguishes partial overprinting of an earlier event (M1) in the south. Northwards no overprint is seen and the ages there represent rapid exhumation since c. 12 Ma. Both zircon and apatite ages are slightly older toward the north of the island probably due to variation of the geotherm in the proximity of the fault. Zircon fission-track ages of the granodiorite range from 13.7 to 12.2 Ma are statistically identical to previously determined U-Pb ages. Apatite fission-track ages however, yield a younging trend from south to north from 12.9 to 9.0 Ma. This could be due to differential depth of emplacement and/or to differential exhumation during tectonic unroofing by a top-to-the north detachment. Fission-track ages on detrital grains in Lower Miocene sediments indicate a source not identified within the present outcropping rocks of Naxos. Ages on boulders and grains in the Middle to Upper Miocene sediments point to rapid erosion until about 8.5-7 Ma.

Beschreibung: The Miocene granitoid plutons exposed in the footwalls of major detachment faults in the Menderes core complex in western Anatolia represent syn-extensional intrusions, providing important geochronological and geochemical constraints on the nature of the late Cenozoic magmatism associated with crustal extension in the Aegean province. Ranging in composition from granite, granodiorite to monzonite, these plutons crosscut the extensional deformation fabrics in their metamorphic host rocks but are foliated, mylonitized and cataclastically deformed in shear zones along the detachment faults structurally upward near the surface. Crystallization and cooling ages of the granitoid rocks are nearly coeval with the documented ages of metamorphism and deformation dating back to the latest Oligocene-early Miocene that record tectonic extension and exhumation in the Menderes massif. The Menderes granitoids (MEG) are represented by mainly metaluminous-slightly peraluminous, high-K calc-alkaline and partly shoshonitic rocks with their silica contents ranging from 62.5 to 78.2 wt%. They display similar major and trace element characteristics and overlapping inter-element ratios (Zr/Nb, La/Nb, Rb/Nb, Ce/Y) suggesting common melt sources. Their enrichment in LILE, strong negative anomalies in Ba, Ta, Nb, Sr and Ti and high incompatible element abundances are consistent with derivation of their magmas from a subduction-metasomatized, heterogeneous sub-continental lithospheric mantle source. Fractional crystalization processes and lower to middle crustal contamination also affected the evolution of the MEG magmas. These geochemical characteristics of the MEG are similar to those of the granitoids in the Cyclades to the west and the Rhodope massif to the north. Partial melting of the subduction-metasomatized lithospheric mantle and the overlying lower-middle crust produced the MEG magmas starting in the late Oligocene-early Miocene. The heat and the basaltic material to induce this partial melting were provided by asthenospheric upwelling caused by lithospheric delamination. Rapid slab rollback of the post-Eocene Hellenic subduction zone may have peeled off the base of the subcontinental lithosphere, triggering the inferred lithospheric delamination. Both slab retreat-generated upper plate deformation and magmatically induced crustal weakening led to the onset of the Aegean extension, which has migrated southward through time.

Beschreibung: We present apatite and zircon fission-track (AFT and ZFT) ages from the Amorgos detachment system in the Aegean Sea, Greece. The Amorgos detachment system consists of a basal and an upper detachment. The lower Amorgos detachment occupies the same tectonic position as the regionally important large-magnitude Cretan detachment and therefore can provide improved constraints on the evolution of the latter. AFT ages from the footwalls of both detachments show that detachment-related cooling occurred in the early Miocene, coeval with an important phase of cooling in the footwall of the Cretan detachment on Crete. We interpret the footwall AFT ages to indicate an early Miocene age of movement on the Amorgos detachments, essentially simultaneously with slip on the Cretan detachment. ZFT ages from rocks above the lower Amorgos detachment are not reset indicating that metamorphic temperatures during the Tertiary Hellenic orogeny did not exceed c. 300 {degrees}C significantly. We discuss a model in which top-to-the-north movement on the Cretan/Amorgos detachment commenced in the early Miocene. Soon after the inception of the Cretan/Amorgos detachment, top-to-the-south movement on the South Cyclades shear zone deformed the latter and brought the Amorgos detachment into a higher crustal position.

Beschreibung: Generally the evaluation of the geological hazards from active volcanoes chiefly concerns the prediction of eruptions whereas less attention is generally paid to other volcanic-related phenomena, such as avalanching-landsliding. This is the case for Ischia (Italy), an active volcanic complex, whose collapse behaviour is only now being evaluated and recognized following extensive marine geophysical and geological investigations. The island of Ischia represents the emerged section of a larger east-west-trending volcanic ridge. The central sector of the island, Mt. Epomeo, has risen to at least 800 m above sea level (a.s.l.) in the past c. 30 ka, at an average rate of 20 mm a-1. The major consequence of such volcano-tectonic uplift includes either sudden collapses, with attendant debris avalanches, or other mass movements in the form of mud-debris flows, debris slides and rock-falls, all radiating out from Mt. Epomeo and most of them entering the sea. During prehistoric times the island of Ischia underwent major catastrophic collapses resulting in debris avalanche deposits of 〉1 km3 to 〈0.5 km3 that have been recognized offshore both NW and south of the island. This study provides possible scenarios for the emplacement of these deposits, with particular reference to the resulting landslide-related tsunami hazard.

Beschreibung: A systematic method to quantify, rank and map the distribution of hazards is applied to the coastal cliffs of the Sorrento Peninsula and Capri (Campania, southern Italy). For such cliffs, which have previously been characterized in terms of types and processes, and therefore compartmentalized, the predisposition to a particular hazard (or indicator), based on its nature, magnitude and recurrence, is evaluated by assigning a code: the higher the predisposition, the higher the code for each compartment. Moreover, hazards can influence one another, and the number of such interactions indicates the seriousness of each hazard, to which a weighting is assigned. By comparing each code in a specific compartment using an interaction matrix, which takes the weighting into consideration, we have calculated a resultant, which is the overall hazard for the compartment. This resultant can also be expressed cartographically. In this application six primary hazards (parameters) are considered: cliff retreat, riverine flooding, storms, landslides, seismicity and volcanism, and man-made structures. The last is the most hazardous parameter, which is weighted highly, owing to its extensive influence on the other hazards. In contrast, riverine flooding and seismicity and volcanism are the least interactive.

Beschreibung: Documentary source materials are essential for retrospective reconstruction of flood events occurring in past centuries. This paper presents methods of research and archiving of historical data from the 16th century to the present. The quality and completeness of the various original sources were evaluated and carefully analysed in their historical context, to avoid serious mistakes. Systematic investigation of about 3000 documents, mainly found in national State Archives and libraries, allows us to identify and localize at least 106 flood events occurring along the Amalfi coast (southern Italy) for five centuries between the years 1500 and 2000. The collected data provide useful details on flood dynamics, size of flooded areas, flood duration, damage level, number of victims and induced geological effects. When available in sufficient quantity, the flood data allow determination of very useful parameters such as the severity class, to identify large floods and their recurrence interval.

Beschreibung: Apatite fission-track (AFT) analyses were performed on 13 Late Palaeozoic samples in order to unravel the late- to post-Variscan evolution of the Ardennes. The dated AFT ages cover a range from 290{+/-}33 Ma to 168{+/-}12 Ma, and the mean confined track lengths correspond to a unimodal distribution, with means varying between 13.1{+/-}0.1 {micro}m and 11.7{+/-}0.3 {micro}m. These ages for the sedimentary rocks are clearly younger than the respective stratigraphic ages, indicative of a cooling through the apatite partial annealing zone after post-depositional complete annealing. All available AFT data (290-146 Ma) from this region might be classified as three groups, that is 290-229 Ma, 218-198 Ma and 190-146 Ma, at least in correlation with three exhumation events. Using an inverse model, four major cooling episodes are identified from the modelled temperature-time (T-t) paths. The first rapid cooling (4.2-5.4 {degrees}C Ma-1, 320-300 Ma) corresponds to the late-Variscan rapid thrusting that ceased at about 300 Ma. The second cooling episode (0.2-4.0 {degrees}C Ma-1, up to 230 Ma) activated differentially, and was probably controlled by the post-Variscan transtension. The third cooling regime (0.1-0.3 {degrees}C Ma-1, 230-45 Ma) in the Ardennes Allochthon is slow, and represents a long-term and slow exhumation. In the Brabant Parautochthon, however, it is subdivided into 0.7 {degrees}C Ma-1 (225-110 Ma) and 0.2 {degrees}C Ma-1 (110-45 Ma). The last accelerated cooling (0.7-1.1 {degrees}C Ma-1, since 45 Ma) that affected the whole Ardennes is associated with a south-north compression during the Pyrenean phase.

Beschreibung: In Lower Palaeozoic times, Gondwana was by far the largest tectonic entity, stretching from the South Pole to north of the Equator, and is termed a superterrane. We consider the northeastern sector of the Gondwanan and peri-Gondwanan margin, from Turkey through the Middle East, the north of the Indian subcontinent, southern China and SE Asia, to Australia and New Zealand. There was progressive tectonic activity along some of its margins during the period, with areas such as southeastern Australia undergoing enlargement through the accretion of island arcs as that part of Gondwana rotated. However, most of the area, from the Taurides of Turkey to at least east of India, represented a passive margin for the whole of the Lower Palaeozoic. Other adjacent areas, such as the Pontides of Turkey and Annamia (Indochina), were separate from the main Gondwanan craton as independent terranes. The quality and quantity of available data on Lower Palaeozoic rocks and faunas varies enormously over different parts of this substantial area, and there are few or no detailed palaeomagnetic data available for most of it. Some workers have considered the string of terranes from Armorica to the Malaysia Peninsula as having left Gondwana together in the late Cambrian as a Hun superterrane, leaving a widening Palaeotethys Ocean between it and Gondwana. However, we consider that the Palaeotethys opened no earlier than in late Silurian time (with Armorica and other terranes to its north), and that the Hun superterrane was not a cohesive unity. Other researchers vary in presenting many substantial Central Asian and Far Eastern terranes, including North China, South China, Tarim, Annamia and others, as integral parts of core Gondwana and not leaving it until Devonian and later times. We conclude that North China, Tarim and Annamia, among others, were probably not attached to core Gondwana in the Lower Palaeozoic, that South China was close to Gondwana (but not an integral part of it), and that Sibumasu was probably part of Gondwana. We try to reconcile the very varied published geological data and opinions, and present new palaeogeographical maps for that sector of Gondwana and surrounding areas for the Cambrian (500 Ma), Ordovician (480 Ma) and Silurian (425 Ma).

Beschreibung: Specimens collected recently from the Las Carmelitas facies of the Kirusillas Formation exposed in the Cochabamba area, Bolivia and dated as Ludlow (Late Silurian) by graptolites, show bedding surfaces almost completely covered by coalified compressions and impressions. The majority comprise mixtures of fragmented amorphous, unidentifiable material ( debris'), but some horizons are dominated by well-defined morphological entities with a particular type or combination of types confined to a particular layer. In all, five morphotypes have been circumscribed, but their affinities, based on a comprehensive review of the possibilities, remain conjectural. Algal affinities are suggested tentatively for abundant, unbranched, narrow, strap-shaped fossils lacking any further diagnostic features and the numerous coalified discs or three-dimensionally preserved spheres (?leiosphaerid acritarchs) occurring isolated in the matrix or, less often, in clusters. Following a discussion on the recognition of faecal pellets in the fossil record, it is postulated that elliptical, spiral or simply segmented structures may be the excreta of planktonic or benthic metazoans, although the latter seems less likely in view of the proposed anoxic depositional environment of the shales that lack any bioturbation. Such coalified remains, whether from primary producers or grazers, indicate high productivity at high palaeolatitudes in the late Silurian continental seas in this region of peri-Gondwana.

Beschreibung: Carbonate productivity and glaciomarine deposits of the Ordovician-Silurian transition display different sedimentary architectures in the Iberian and Hesperian Chains of NE Spain, as a result of quiescent and active extensional tectonics on platforms fringing North Gondwana. The late Katian carbonate productivity of the Iberian platform reflects the onset of bryozoan-pelmatozoan meadows and mud-mound complexes throughout an intra-shelf ramp, whereas carbonate nucleation of prominent carbonate factories took place on the top of isolated palaeo-highs in the Hesperian platform. In both cases, the end of carbonate productivity is associated with glacioeustatic regression, subaerial exposure and karstification, pre-dating widespread precipitation of iron ore deposits in the vicinity of palaeo-highs. The Hirnantian glacioeustatic transgression is represented lithostratigraphically by the Orea Formation. In the Iberian platform, the formation consists of two distinct depositional sequences bounded by the progradation of conglomeratic channels, and is dominated by the record of massive and crudely stratified diamictites, with tabular geometries and deposited subaqueously as rain-out' facies. In contrast, the Hesperian platform is rich in disrupted diamictites, which form strongly deformed units interpreted as submarine slumps associated with active synsedimentary faults. In both cases, the anomalous occurrence of massive diamictites, rich in boulder- to sand-sized carbonate dropstones, and displaying rapid variations in density and size, suggests that distinct iceberg drift lanes' existed, indicating current activity in the open sea.

Beschreibung: In recent decades various research studies have focused on the reconstruction of Palaeozoic Europe, reflecting the complex geodynamic history related to the formation of the supercontinent Pangaea. It has been demonstrated that Palaeozoic Europe comprises a series of tectonostratigraphical units, or terranes', located between the remnants of three major palaeocontinents, Gondwana, Laurentia and Baltica. Some of these terranes' have been referred to as microcontinents', a typical (palaeo-)geographical term, and as microplates', a typical plate-tectonic term, giving rise to misunderstandings and a continuing scientific debate. This confusion is based primarily on an inconsistent use of different palaeogeographical terms by specialists from different scientific disciplines. Whereas large palaeocontinents such as Baltica and Siberia have been named as terranes by some workers, several peri-Gondwanan terranes' have been attributed to microcontinents or microplates, without conclusive reasoning. This paper is a critical review of the terminology used for three European peri-Gondwanan palaeogeographical entities: Avalonia', Armorica' and Perunica'. The review indicates that only Avalonia should be considered as a separate (micro-)continent on a separate (micro-)plate. Armorica has many different definitions and is commonly considered to be composed of several terranes. It is, however, not at all evident if Armorica was a separate (micro-)continent and/or an independent (micro-)plate. For Perunica, defined originally as a separate microplate, current evidence demonstrates that it can probably be considered only as a palaeobiogeographical province.

Beschreibung: The short-lived end-Ordovician Hirnantian glaciation allied to marine mass extinction is variously considered as a short-lived event or as the peak of long-drawn-out climatic cooling through at least late Ordovician-early Silurian times. Evidence from Early Palaeozoic facies, faunas and stable isotope excursions used to interpret climatic cooling events ranges farther, from late Mid-Cambrian to late Silurian times. Glacigenic sediments, structures and geomorphology provide direct evidence of glacial episodes. Cool-water carbonate deposition, which is particularly widespread during the late Ordovician Boda event in high-latitude peri-Gondwana-Gondwana, and beyond into mid-low palaeolatitudes, is interpreted as indicating global cooling, not warming as has been proposed. Such carbonates also characterize mid-latitude continents widely at horizons earlier in the Ordovician, and more locally in the mid-Silurian in high-latitude Gondwana. Cool-water carbonate mounds have distinctive facies-controlled mound faunas across palaeocontinents. Other facies evidence for palaeoclimates includes black shale deposition, including deglacial organic-rich hot shales', which indicate transgression in epeiric seas, and sea-level curves interpreted from facies and faunal successions. Correlation is shown between facies evidence and positive C isotope excursions, from which cyclicities are apparent. The possible interface of orbitally controlled rhythms is considered against evolving palaeobiogeography, and changes in global sea level and in pCO2. Facies and faunal evidence from peri-Gondwanan terranes (Armorica, Central Europe, Alborz) is assessed with that from Gondwana (mostly North Africa, South America) and correlatives in Avalonia, Baltica and Laurentia to establish a wider picture of early Palaeozoic cooling events.

Beschreibung: Despite the existence of proven Neoproterozoic-Early Cambrian ( Infracambrian') hydrocarbon plays in many parts of the world, the Neoproterozoic Eon, from 1000 Ma to the base of the Cambrian at 542 Ma, is relatively poorly known from a petroleum perspective. The so-called Peri-Gondwanan Margin' is one region of the Neoproterozoic world that is exciting particular interest in the search for old' hydrocarbon plays, mainly due to exploration success in time-equivalent sequences of Oman. The Infracambrian' succession in North Africa is widely accessible, and is already emerging as a hydrocarbon exploration target with considerable potential and with proven petroleum systems in different areas. The Taoudenni Basin (Mauritania, Mali, Algeria) in western North Africa is an underexplored basin, despite the Abolag-1 well (Texaco 1974) gas discovery. New palynological data have recently provided the first definitive Late Riphean age dates for the stromatolitic limestone reservoir sequence in Abolag-1. The widespread presence of stromatolitic carbonate units of potential reservoir facies in many parts of North Africa has been confirmed by new fieldwork in the Taoudenni Basin, in the Anti-Atlas region of Morocco and in the Al Kufrah Basin of Libya. Similar biostratigraphic age constraints have also been obtained from subsurface sequences of the Cyrenaica Platform bordering the East Sirte Basin of Libya, many of which have been traditionally assigned an unconstrained' Cambro-Ordovician age on the basis of lithological characteristics. Besides the proven, producing, weathered-granite reservoir in East Sirte Basin, the hydrocarbon potential of Neoproterozoic-Early Cambrian sequences developed in structural troughs bordering the south Cyrenaica Platform is still being evalutated. Neoproterozoic-Early Cambrian organic-rich strata with hydrocarbon source rock potential are widespread along the Peri-Gondwanan Margin. Some of the black shales encountered on the West African Craton may be as old as 1000 Ma and predate the Pan-African orogenic event. The Late Ordovician-Early Silurian systems in North Africa and the Middle East may form a good analogue for post-glacial source rock depositional systems in the Neoproterozoic, where black shale deposition may also have been triggered by post-glacial sea-level rise.

Beschreibung: Ecological and evolutionary principles are often context-dependent, particularly where the context is biologically defined. Organ-grade animals (eumetazoans) are particularly powerful contextual agents, with a unique capacity to drive escalatory co-evolution and build multi-tiered food-webs. The evolution of eumetazoans through the Ediacaran and early Cambrian fundamentally altered macroecological and macroevolutionary dynamics, including the structure and function of the marine carbon cycle. Pelagic eumetazoans can be held responsible for driving the evolution of relatively large eukaryotic phytoplankton, thereby shifting the system from a turbid, stratified, cyanobacteria-dominated stable state to the clear-water, well-oxygenated, algae-dominated condition typical of the Phanerozoic. Intermittent return to the pre-Ediacaran state during Phanerozoic extinctions and oceanic anoxic events suggests that the widespread anoxia detected in pre-Ediacaran deep-marine sequences may be a consequence of this alternate biological pump rather than a reflection of fundamentally lower levels of atmospheric oxygen. The transition between the pre- and post-Ediacaran states is also associated with the oldest commercially exploitable hydrocarbons, a possible by-product of invading animals and their top-down impact on the biological pump.

Beschreibung: Neoproterozoic successions are major hydrocarbon producers around the world. In North Africa, large basins with significant surface outcrops and thick sedimentary fills are widespread. These basins are now emerging as potential sources of hydrocarbons and are attracting interest from geological researchers in academia and the oil and gas industry. This volume focuses on recent developments in the understanding and correlation of North African basin fills and explores novel approaches to prospecting for source and reservoir rocks. The papers cover aspects of petroleum prospectivity and age-equivalent global petroleum systems, Neoproterozoic tectonics and palaeogeography, sequence stratigraphy, glacial events and global climatic models, faunal and floral evolution and the deposition of source rocks. The broader aim of this volume is to compare major environmental change, the emergence of life, the global carbon cycle and the implications for hydrocarbon exploration of well-studied Neoproterozoic successions worldwide.

Beschreibung: The plate tectonic and palaeogeographic history of the late Proterozoic is a tale of two supercontinents: Rodinia and Pannotia. Rodinia formed during the Grenville Event (c. 1100 Ma) and remained intact until its collision with the Congo continent (800-750 Ma). This collision closed the southern part of the Mozambique Seaway, and triggered the break-up of Rodinia. The Panthalassic Ocean opened as the supercontinent of Rodinia split into a northern half (East Gondwana, Cathyasia and Cimmeria) and a southern half (Laurentia, Amazonia-NW Africa, Baltica, and Siberia). Over the next 150 Ma, North Rodinia rotated counter-clockwise over the North Pole, while South Rodinia rotated clockwise across the South Pole. In the latest Precambrian (650-550 Ma), the three Neoproterozoic continents - North Rodinia, South Rodinia and the Congo continents - collided during the Pan-Africa Event forming the second Neoproterozoic supercontinent, Pannotia (Greater Gondwanaland). Pan-African mountain building and the fall in sea level associated with the assembly of Pannotia may have triggered the extreme Ice House conditions that characterize the middle and late Neoproterozoic. Although the palaeogeographic maps presented here do not prohibit a Snowball Earth, the mapped extent of Neoproterozoic ice sheets favour a bipolar Ice House World with a broad expanse of ocean at the equator. Soon after it was assembled (c. 560 Ma), Pannotia broke apart into the four principal Palaeozoic continents: Laurentia (North America), Baltica (northern Europe), Siberia and Gondwana. The amalgamation and subsequent break-up of Pannotia may have triggered the Cambrian Explosion'. The first economically important accumulations of hydrocarbons are from Neoproterozoic sources. The two major source rocks of this age (Nepa of Siberia and Huqf of Oman) occur in association with massive Neoproterozoic evaporite deposits and in the warm equatorial-subtropical belt, within 30{degrees} of the equator.

Beschreibung: The Proterozoic Sirban Limestone of Jammu in northern India contains an assemblage of Neoproterozoic microflora comparable to other such assemblages from different Proterozoic oil- and gas-bearing carbonate successions in India, Morocco and Siberia. The stromatolitic Sirban Limestone succession is composed of lamina-scale organic-rich source rocks, limestone units with good-quality reservoir characteristics and seal horizons that together constitute the basic physical elements of a petroleum system. A reworked microfloral assemblage of Neoproterozoic age is also recovered from the unconformably overlying Subathu Formation (Eocene) from the area. Some in situ elements of this assemblage, including a few genera, were also recovered from the Sirban Limestone. This reworked assemblage may be related either to upwards migration of hydrocarbons from deeper sediments or, more likely, to the existence of the Sirban Limestone and younger Neoproterozoic formations as a positive area that sourced the microflora to the Eocene Subathu Basin.

Beschreibung: The classical definition of Infracambrian' that refers strictly to sequences of Proterozoic age is not applicable in southwestern Gondwana. In this paper the term Infracambrian' is used to define the sequences deposited during the Pampean orogenic cycle, which extends until the Cambrian period. A classification of Infracambrian basins is proposed based on location, level of preservation and perceived petroleum potential. Only the eastern basins of the South American plate have potentially significant exploration potential. Two Neoproterozoic petroleum systems have been identified in the eastern basins: a Riphean system, developed on the western margin of the San Francisco Craton, in the San Francisco Basin of Brazil; and a Vendian system, developed on the eastern margin of the Amazonia-Rio de la Plata cratons, in the Corumba Basin of Brazil and Paraguay. The Riphean system is reportedly proven by a well test drilled by Petrobras. An active Vendian petroleum system is proven by the presence of oil seeps within fractured limestones. A Vendian petroleum system is proposed for the Claromeco Basin of Argentina based on the correlation of the Vendian and Riphean sequences.

Beschreibung: Plate-tectonics principles have been routinely applied to the study of Phanerozoic orogenic belts and, more controversially, to Precambrian orogens as far back as the Early Archaean. Recent advances in a variety of fields have vastly improved our understanding of ancient orogenic belts, so that realistic modern analogues can be entertained. This volume presents up-to-date syntheses of some classic modern and ancient orogenic belts as well as examples of some of the processes responsible for their evolution.

Beschreibung: The proposition that the Grenville Province is a remnant of a large hot long-duration collisional orogen is examined through a comparative study of its present orogenic front, the Grenville Front, and a former front, the Allochthon Boundary Thrust. Structural, metamorphic and geochronologic data for both boundaries and their hanging walls from the length of the Grenville Province are compared. Cumulative displacement across the Grenville Front was minor (10 s of km) whereas that across the Allochthon Boundary Thrust was major (100 s of km), consistent with the observation that the latter boundary separates rocks with a different age, and P-T character, of metamorphism. On an orogen scale, Grenvillian metamorphism can be subdivided into two spatially and temporally distinct orogenic phases, a relatively high T Ottawan (c. 1090-1020 Ma) phase in the hanging wall of the Allochthon Boundary Thrust, and a relatively lower T Rigolet (c. 1000-980 Ma) phase in the hanging wall of the Grenville Front. It is argued that the structural setting and [≥]50 My duration of Ottawan metamorphism are compatible with some form of channel flow beneath an orogenic plateau, with the Allochthon Boundary Thrust forming the base of the channel. Channel flow ceased at c. 1020 Ma when the Allochthon Boundary Thrust was reworked as part of a system of normal-sense shear zones, and following a hiatus of c. 20 My the short-lived Rigolet metamorphism took place in the former foreland and involved the development of a new orogenic front, the Grenville Front. Taken together, this suggests the Grenville Orogen developed as a large hot long-duration orogen during the Ottawan orogenic phase, but following gravitational collapse of the plateau the locus of thickening migrated into the foreland and active tectonism was restricted to a subjacent small cold short-duration orogen. The foreland-ward migration of the orogenic front from the Allochthon Boundary Thrust to the Grenville Front, the contrasting P-T-t character of the metamorphic rocks in their hanging walls, and the evidence for orogenic collapse followed by renewed growth, provide insights into the complex evolution of a long-duration collisional orogen.

Beschreibung: Compiled and synthesized geological data suggest that the Caribbean Plate consists of dispersed continental basement blocks, wedges of ?Triassic-Jurassic clastic rocks, Jurassic-Late Cretaceous carbonate rocks, volcanic arc rocks, widespread, probably subaerial basalts and serpentinized upper mantle. This points to an in situ origin of the Caribbean Plate as part of Middle America, continuing the geology of the eastern North America margin in a more extensional tectonic setting. Extension increases from the Gulf of Mexico through the Yucatan Basin to the Caribbean.

Beschreibung: During the Early to Middle Palaeozoic, prior to formation of Pangaea, the Canadian and adjacent New England Appalachians evolved as an accretionary orogen. Episodic orogenesis mainly resulted from accretion of four microcontinents or crustal ribbons: Dashwoods, Ganderia, Avalonia and Meguma. Dashwoods is peri-Laurentian, whereas Ganderia, Avalonia and Meguma have Gondwanan provenance. Accretion led to a progressive eastwards (present co-ordinates) migration of the onset of collision-related deformation, metamorphism and magmatism. Voluminous, syn-collisional felsic granitoid-dominated pulses are explained as products of slab-breakoff rather than contemporaneous slab subduction. The four phases of orogenesis associated with accretion of these microcontinents are known as the Taconic, Salinic, Acadian and Neoacadian orogenies, respectively. The Ordovician Taconic orogeny was a composite event comprising three different phases, due to involvement of three peri-Laurentian oceanic and continental terranes. The Taconic orogeny was terminated with an arc-arc collision due to the docking of the active leading edge of Ganderia, the Popelogan-Victoria arc, to an active Laurentian margin (Red Indian Lake arc) during the Late Ordovician (460-450 Ma). The Salinic orogeny was due to Late Ordovician-Early Silurian (450-423 Ma) closure of the Tetagouche-Exploits backarc basin, which separated the active leading edge of Ganderia from its trailing passive edge, the Gander margin. Salinic closure was initiated following accretion of the active leading edge of Ganderia to Laurentia and stepping back of the west-directed subduction zone behind the accreted Popelogan-Victoria arc. The Salinic orogeny was immediately followed by Late Silurian-Early Devonian accretion of Avalonia (421-400 Ma) and Middle Devonian-Early Carboniferous accretion of Meguma (395-350 Ma), which led to the Acadian and Neoacadian orogenies, respectively. Each accretion took place after stepping-back of the west-dipping subduction zone behind an earlier accreted crustal ribbon, which led to progressive outboard growth of Laurentia. The Acadian orogeny was characterized by a flat-slab setting after the onset of collision, which coincided with rapid southerly palaeolatitudinal motion of Laurentia. Acadian orogenesis preferentially started in the hot and hence, weak backarc region. Subsequently it was characterized by a time-transgressive, hinterland migrating fold-and-thrust belt antithetic to the west-dipping A-subduction zone. The Acadian deformation front appears to have been closely tracked in space by migration of the Acadian magmatic front. Syn-orogenic, Acadian magmatism is interpreted to mainly represent partial melting of subducted fore-arc material and pockets of fluid-fluxed asthenosphere above the flat-slab, in areas where Ganderian's lithosphere was thinned by extension during Silurian subduction of the Acadian oceanic slab. Final Acadian magmatism from 395-c. 375 Ma is tentatively attributed to slab-breakoff. Neoacadian accretion of Meguma was accommodated by wedging of the leading edge of Laurentia, which at this time was represented by Avalonia. The Neoacadian was devoid of any accompanying arc magmatism, probably because it was characterized by a flat-slab setting throughout its history.

Beschreibung: This book considers the geology between North and South America. It contributes to debate about the area's evolution, particularly that of the Caribbean. Prevailing understanding is that the Caribbean formed in the Pacific and was engulfed between the Americas as the latter drifted west. Accordingly, the Caribbean Plate comprises internal, Jurassic-Cretaceous oceanic rocks, thickened into a Cretaceous hotspot/plume plateau, with obducted ophiolites and Cretaceous-Palaeogene, subduction-related, intra-oceanic volcanic arc and metamorphosed arc/continental rocks exposed on its margins. An alternative interpretation is that the Caribbean evolved in place. It consists largely of continental crust, extended in the Triassic-Jurassic, which subsided below thick Jurassic-Cretaceous carbonate rocks and flood basalts, and Cenozoic carbonate and clastic rocks. After uplift of oceanic' and volcanic arc rocks onto (continental) margins, the interior foundered in the Middle Eocene. Papers range from regional overviews and discussions of Caribbean origins to aspects of local geology arranged in a circum-Caribbean tour and ending in the interior. They address tectonics, structure, geochronology, seismicity, igneous and metamorphic petrology, metamorphism, geochemistry, stratigraphy and palaeontology.

Beschreibung: The final pulse of the Variscan Orogeny in the northern Bohemian Massif (Saxo-Thuringian Zone) is related to the closure of the Rheic Ocean, which resulted in subduction-related D1-deformation followed by dextral strike-slip activity (D2-deformation, the Elbe Zone). Taken together, these deformation events reflect the amalgamation of Pangaea in central Europe. Lateral extrusion of high-grade metamorphosed rocks from an allochthonous domain (Saxonian Granulitgebirge) and the top-NW-directed transport of these domains (Erzgebirge nappe complex, Saxonian Granulitgebirge) are responsible for these dextral strike-slip movements. Geochronological data presented herein, together with published data, allow the timing of the final pulse of the Variscan Orogeny and related plutonic, volcano-sedimentary and tectonic processes. Marine sedimentation lasted at least until the Tournaisian (357 Ma). Onset of Variscan strike-slip along the Elbe Zone is assumed to be coeval with the beginning of the top-NW-directed lateral extrusion of the Saxonian Granulitgebirge at 342 Ma (D2-deformation). The sigmoidal shape of the Meissen Massif indicates that strike-slip activity was coexistent with intrusion of the pluton at c. 334 Ma into the schist belt of the Elbe Zone. In contrast, the intrusion of the Markersbach Granite provides a minimum age of c. 327 Ma for the termination of D2 strike-slip activity, because this undeformed pluton cross-cuts all strike-slip related tectonic structures. Geochronological data of an ash bed from the Permo-Carboniferous Dohlen Basin show clearly that post-orogenic sedimentation of Variscan molasse in that area was already active at 305 Ma. This pull-apart basin is a local example of regional Permo-Carboniferous extension within Pangaea. The uplift and denudation of the Variscan basement in the Saxo-Thuringian Zone occurred between c. 327-305 Ma.

Beschreibung: Caribbean Plate margins are assemblages of terranes located, since the Mid-Cretaceous, along transform boundaries between the Caribbean, North and South America and the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Litho-stratigraphic, petrological and metamorphic features of the main units and their regional correlations allow definition of the main geotectonic elements (continental margins, oceanic basins, subduction zones, magmatic arcs) involved in the evolution of Caribbean Plate margins. They provide valuable constraints on plate evolution since the Jurassic. This involved proto-Caribbean ocean opening, thickening into an oceanic plateau, beginning of convergence in the Early Cretaceous, atypical evolution of a supra-subduction system during the Mid-Cretaceous, subduction of rifted continental margins, Late Cretaceous convergence related to eastward migration of two opposite triple-junctions and strike-slip tectonics. Using these data, we compare different models and suggest improvements.

Beschreibung: I propose a new seismotectonic model for the Chortis Block, at the northwestern corner of the Caribbean Plate. Shallow seismicity in the area clearly shows three zones of deformation: one along the North America-Caribbean Plate boundary and another along the Central America volcanic arc, and one in the area of the grabens of northern Central America. Analysis of Centroid moment-tensor solutions for shallow earthquakes in these three area show that T or tension axes are horizontal and trend away from the corner, and that P or compression axes for the plate boundary and the volcanic arc are also horizontal and trending towards the corner. Calculation of seismic moment release per unit volume reveals similar values for the volcanic arc and the plate boundary. The state of stress and similarity in seismic moment release suggest that the Chortis Block is being extruded towards the ESE. This is probably due to compression of the large North America and Cocos Plates that surround it.

Beschreibung: The Caribbean Plate consists of a plateau basalt, formed probably in the Middle Cretaceous, complicated by a continental block, Chortis, several magmatic arcs, strike-slip motions along major fault systems such as the Motagua-Polochic fault zone in Guatemala, the pull-apart basin of the Cayman Trough and subduction zones below Central America and the Lesser Antilles. Five major collisional events have been identified: (i) Late Paleocene-Middle Eocene collision of the Greater Antilles with the Bahamas platform; (ii) Late Cretaceous collision of Chortis with the Maya Block; (iii) emplacement of nappes upon the Venezuelan foreland in the Cenozoic; (iv) collision of the Western Cordillera oceanic complex with the Central Cordillera of Colombia; and (v) Miocene collision of the eastern Costa Rica-Panama arc with the Western Cordillera. All these orogenic events' show an eastward movement of the Caribbean Plate relative to the Americas. Migration of the Jamaica Block from the Pacific caused obduction of the oldest ophiolites of Huehuetenango at the western end of the Polochic-Rio Negro faults in Guatemala. South-southwest migration of the Chortis Block from west of Mexico and northward towards the Maya Block destroyed a trench associated with the Motagua-Jalomax fault system and caused the Chuacus Orogeny, emplacing Guatemalan ophiolite complexes and metamorphosing the rocks from the Chuacus Series.

Beschreibung: The structure, stratigraphy and magmatic history of northern Peru, Ecuador and Colombia are only adequately explained by Pacific-origin models for the Caribbean Plate. Inter-American models for the origin of the Caribbean Plate cannot explain the contrasts between the Northern Andes and the Central Andes. Persistent large magnitude subduction, arc magmatism and compressional deformation typify the Central Andes, while the Northern Andes shows back-arc basin and passive margin formation followed by dextral oblique accretion of oceanic plateau basalt and island arc terranes with Caribbean affinity. Cretaceous separation between the Americas resulted in the development of a NNE-trending dextral-transpressive boundary between the Caribbean and northwestern South America, becoming more compressional when spreading in the Proto-Caribbean Seaway slowed towards the end of the Cretaceous. Dextral transpression started at 120-100 Ma, when the Caribbean Arc formed at the leading edge of the Caribbean Plate as a result of subduction zone polarity reversal at the site of the pre-existing Trans-American Arc, which had linked to Central America to South America in the vicinity of the present-day Peru-Ecuador border. Subsequent closure of the Andean Back-Arc Basin resulted in accretion of Caribbean terranes to western Colombia. Initiation of flat-slab subduction of the Caribbean Plate beneath Colombia at about 100 Ma is associated with limited magmatism, with no subsequent development of a magmatic arc. This was followed by northward-younging Maastrichtian to Eocene collision of the trailing edge Panama Arc. The triple junction where the Panama Arc joined the Peru-Chile trench was located west of present-day Ecuador as late as Eocene time, and the Talara, Tumbes and Manabi pull-apart basins directly relate to its northward migration. Features associated with the subduction of the Nazca Plate, such as active calc-alkaline volcanic arcs built on South American crust, only became established in Ecuador, and then Colombia, as the triple junction migrated to the north. Our model provides a comprehensive, regional and testable framework for analysing the as yet poorly understood collage of arc remnants, basement blocks and basins in the Northern Andes.

Beschreibung: Tightly curved mountain belts are prominent features of global topography. Typically, these oroclines' occur in areas of regional compression but enclose basins where extension has been contemporaneous with outward directed thrusting in the orogens. Examples of such basin-orogen pairs include the Alboran Sea-Gibraltar Arc, Tyrrhenian Sea-Aeolian Arc, Aegean Sea-Hellenic Arc and Pannonian Basin-Carpathian Arc, all in the western Tethys but matched in the eastern Tethys by the Banda Sea and Outer Banda Arc. The development of the basins has been variously explained by gravitational collapse of rapidly elevated mountain blocks and by extrusion prompted by asthenopheric flows, but it is not even universally agreed that similar processes have operated in all cases. Critics have cited gross differences in volcanic activity (absent from the Gibraltar Arc, modest in the Carpathians but intense in other examples) and in the presence or absence of recognizable Wadati-Benioff Zones. The superficial similarities between the Caribbean Sea-Antilles Arcs and typical oroclinal basin-orocline pairs have recently been invoked in support of an in situ Caribbean evolutionary model, even though the disputed origins of oroclines limit their reliability as analogues. The Caribbean's considerably greater area further emphasizes the need for caution, while the most obvious objection to identifying it as a member of the oroclinal group is its very long history. Oroclinal basins typically pass from initiation to effective stabilization in a few tens of millions of years, whereas the original Caribbean oceanic crust, which is now bounded to the east and west by active subduction zones, was probably formed in the Jurassic. Rather than invoking an overall common origin for the Caribbean and the Tethyan basins, it is more useful to look for shared causes of specific individual similarities. The impact of a rigid block might be as effective in imposing curvature on a mountain belt as rapid expansion in an adjacent area. However, it does seem that the case for the crust of the Caribbean being typical of oceanic large igneous provinces (LIPs) may have been overstated and, in the light of oroclinal analogues, that some features of the still poorly understood Beata Ridge and Lower Nicaragua Rise may be most easily explained by east-west extension promoted by the convergence between North and South America.

Beschreibung: A lithospheric-scale, geodynamic model of the Caribbean southern boundary takes into account tectonic and stratigraphic elements previously unconsidered or not well constrained. The Falcon, Bonaire, Blanquilla and Grenada basins are parts of a former single back-arc basin associated with the migrating Mesozoic Caribbean Arc in Late Eocene-Oligocene times. Spreading of the crescent-shaped basin was triggered by declining Caribbean eastward motion in response to increased convergence between the two Americas at around 38-33 Ma. Dextral wrenching along the southern boundary started in western Venezuela at 17-15 Ma and progressed eastward to the El Pilar Fault by 12 Ma. Eastward motion of the Caribbean relative to South America was earlier accommodated by east-progressing, non-partitioned oblique subduction and collision, as illustrated today in eastern Venezuela around the Los Bajos-El Soldado fault system. Extrusion of the Maracaibo and Bonaire blocks towards the NNE started around 5 Ma, thus the dextral Bocono fault is a young feature. Total plate boundary Cenozoic dextral wrenching recorded onshore Venezuela does not exceed 100 km and is more likely to be in the order of 55 km.

Beschreibung: High-grade metamorphic rocks - marble, charnockite, meta-anorthosite, metapelite, clinopyroxenite and garnet amphibolite - have been found in northwestern Venezuela. They occur as: (a) xenoliths in the Oligo-Miocene lavas of Cerro Atravesado, Central Falcon; (b) possibly olistoliths in Nuezalito Formation, NW Portuguesa; (c) in Cerro El Guayabo, an elongated east-west oriented hill in the Nirgua Complex, Yaracuy; (d) rounded clasts of marble in the basal conglomerate of Casupal Formation, Falcon; (e) rounded clasts of anorthosite and sillimanite gneiss in a conglomerate of Matatere Formation, Lara; and (f) basement cores extracted from La Vela Gulf, Falcon. These high-grade rocks probably suffered a retrograde metamorphism to amphibolite facies of Palaeozoic age, and an even more retrograde event to the greenschist facies during Early Cenozoic, together with strong shearing and hydrothermal alteration. They indicate the possible existence of an extensive high-grade basement, or a mosaic of such blocks, under northwestern Venezuela, especially below the Falcon petroleum basin. Similar rocks crop out extensively in northern and central Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador and Peru. This is the first time they are described from Venezuela. Their high-grade lithology, pre-Mesozoic positions, and the tectonic evolution of Northern South America allow interpretation of a possible Grenvillian affinity, related to the supercontinents of Rodinia and Pangaea.

Beschreibung: The Benbow Inlier in Jamaica contains the Devils Racecourse Formation, which is composed of a Hauterivian to Aptian island arc succession. The lavas can be split into a lower succession of basaltic andesites and dacites/rhyolites, which have an island arc tholeiite (IAT) composition and an upper basaltic and basaltic andesite sequence with a calc-alkaline (CA) chemistry. Trace element and Nd-Hf isotopic evidence reveals that the IAT and CA lavas are derived from two chemically similar mantle wedge source regions predominantly composed of normal mid-ocean ridge-type spinel lherzolite. In addition, Th-light rare earth element/high field strength element-heavy rare earth element ratios, Nd-Hf isotope systematics, (Ce/Ce*)n-mn and Th/La ratios indicate that the IAT and CA mantle wedge source regions were enriched by chemically distinct slab fluxes, which were derived from both the altered basaltic portion of the slab and its accompanying pelagic and terrigenous sedimentary veneer respectively. The presence of IAT and CA island arc lavas before and after the Aptian-Albian demonstrates that the compositional change in the Great Arc of the Caribbean was the result of the subduction of chemically differing sedimentary material. There is therefore no evidence from the geochemistry of this lava succession to support arc-wide subduction polarity reversal in the Aptian-Albian.

Beschreibung: Literature survey reveals evidence of a thick (c. 3 km), largely dissolved, Berriasian-Valanginian Carib Halite Formation', deposited in a Jurassic to Coniacian Carib Graben' from Colombia through Venezuela to Trinidad. From Campanian time the graben inverted into the (partly metamorphosed) south-verging nappe/thrust-belt of northern South America (Guajira to Trinidad), and later the bivergent Eastern Cordillera and Merida Andes. Outcropping halite is confined to Colombia. Numerous lines of evidence suggest buried halite in Colombia, Venezuela and Trinidad: drowning coastal geomorphology (halite-solution subsidence); subaerial and submarine closed depressions (solution pits); saline springs; mud-volcano-fluid analysis; heat-flow anomalies; gravity anomalies; and thrust-belt structural style. Other data suggest thick (kilometres) vanished halite: a Berriasian regional faunal gap; highly organic shales/phyllites (solution residues); intense fracturing (solution collapse); metamorphic-grade discontinuities (solution weld); and Neogene supraorogen basins attributable to buried-halite solution, for example Gulf of Venezuela, Monagas thrust belt, Gulf of Paria and onshore Trinidad. Halite solution by circulating meteoric water is inferred to have begun near 11 Ma, reflecting climate change (wetter) accompanying the onset of the Gulf Stream, induced by collision of the Panama Arc against Colombia, interrupting deep-sea Caribbean-Pacific interchange. The Carib Halite concept has important implications for exploration in the oil-rich thrust belts of Colombia, Venezuela and Trinidad. There is also potential for new finds of emeralds and other evaporite-associated minerals.

Beschreibung: Current models for the tectonic evolution of northeastern South America invoke a Palaeogene phase of inter-American convergence, followed by diachronous dextral oblique collision with the Caribbean Plate, becoming strongly transcurrent in the Late Miocene. Heavy mineral analysis of Cretaceous to Pleistocene rocks from eastern Venezuela, Barbados and Trinidad allow us to define six primary clastic domains, refine our palaeogeographic maps, and relate them to distinct stages of tectonic development: (1) Cretaceous passive margin of northern South America; (2) Palaeogene clastics related to the dynamics of the Proto-Caribbean Inversion Zone before collision with the Caribbean Plate; (3) Late Eocene-Oligocene southward-transgressive clastic sediments fringing the Caribbean foredeep during initial collision; (4) Oligocene-Middle Miocene axial fill of the Caribbean foredeep; (5) Late Eocene-Middle Miocene northern proximal sedimentary fringe of the Caribbean thrustfront; and (6) Late Miocene-Recent deltaic sediments flowing parallel to the orogen during its post-collisional, mainly transcurrent stage. Domain 1-3 sediments are highly mature, comprising primary Guayana Shield-derived sediment or recycled sediment of shield origin eroded from regional Palaeogene unconformities. In Trinidad, palinspastic restoration of Neogene deformation indicates that facies changes once interpreted as north to south are in fact west to east, reflecting progradation from the Maturin Basin into central Trinidad across the NW-SE trending Bohordal marginal offset, distorted by about 70 km of dextral shear through Trinidad. There is no mineralogical indication of a northern or northwestern erosional sediment source until Oligocene onset of Domain 4 sedimentation. Paleocene-Middle Eocene rocks of the Scotland Formation sandstones in Barbados do show an immature orogenic signature, in contrast to Venezuela-Trinidad Domain 2 sediments, this requires: (1) at least a bathymetric difference, if not a tectonic barrier, between them; and (2) that the Barbados deep-water depocentre was within turbidite transport distance of the Early Palaeogene orogenic source areas of western Venezuela and/or Colombia. Domains 4-6 (from Late Oligocene) show a strong direct or recycled influence of Caribbean Orogen igneous and metamorphic terranes in addition to substantial input from the shield areas to the south. The delay in the appearance of common Caribbean detritus in the east, relative to the Paleocene and Eocene appearance of Caribbean-influenced sands in the west, reflects the diachronous, eastward migration of Caribbean foredeep subsidence and sedimentation as a response to eastward-younging collision of the Caribbean Plate and the South American margin.

Beschreibung: In his book De Civitate Dei (published about 424), Saint Augustine reported the discovery, on the shore of Utica (now Tunisia), of an enormous tooth, which he attributed to a giant. In Europe, this finding reinforced the myth of the past existence of giants on Earth, mentioned in the Bible. In 1630, new relicts of a so-called giant were found at Utica. Thomas d'Arcos, who lived in Tunis, described them and sent a tooth to the French scholar Peiresc, who demonstrated that it belonged to an elephant instead. Peiresc knew that he was contradicting Saint Augustine, but, while Galileo was under trial in Rome, he remained silent on this matter. Based on a sketch, the tooth can be attributed to an African elephant close to the present species Loxodonta africana or to the Pleistocene L. africanava. Peiresc also investigated other similar finds, particularly that of the so-called giant Theutobochus, discovered in 1613 at Montrigaud in France (in reality, a Miocene Deinotherium giganteum), and that of giants' in Sicily and Puglia (Italy). In each case, Peiresc attributed the relicts to the grave of an elephant' instead of a giant. However, his studies did not dispel the myth of giants, which persisted until the 18th century.

Beschreibung: John Stuart, the third earl of Bute and the British Prime Minister from 1762 to 1763, and the apothecary surgeon James Parkinson both amassed large and important geological collections; both believed in the biblical Deluge; both admired the work of Jean Andre de Luc; and both were fascinated by the study of geology. Each sought a theory that would explain the geological phenomena they observed but which also allowed them to maintain their religious integrity. They were men of their time, struggling to come to terms with a new science that challenged their strongly held religious beliefs. Bute's Observations on the Natural History of the Earth, never published, provides us with a snapshot of his thinking about prevailing theories of the Earth. He dismissed all except those that fitted the geological facts as understood at the time, but was nevertheless unable to progress from a rigid belief in the biblical Flood having been a miracle. Parkinson's Organic Remains of a Former World reveals a man fully conversant with contemporary geological ideas being propounded elsewhere in Europe. Also highly religious, Parkinson oscillated between his deeply held beliefs and the contradictory evidence provided by the fossils he held in his hand.

Beschreibung: This paper gives a brief account of some of the political and social events that occurred in China during the period of the Great Leap Forward', when the slogan of red and expert' was first enunciated, and the subsequent Cultural Revolution'. These two movements exerted considerable influence on Chinese science and technology. As an example, we consider the establishment of glaciology in China and the (largely unsuccessful) attempts to increase water supplies in arid regions by means of melting glaciers. The question is then raised as to whether the Maoism' that motivated the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution had features in common with organized religions in other countries. The conclusion is reached that it did in some respects, although it was more in the nature of a civil and nationalistic form of religion than a spiritual movement and was atheistic.

Beschreibung: Despite the wide diversity of beliefs, personalities and geological expertise of 10 clerical geologists' of varying Christian denominations who worked in Australia, mainly during the nineteenth century, there is little indication that they saw any contradiction between a belief in a divine being and the pursuit of geology. There was a continuity of these attitudes throughout the century, within the changing social and professional geological environment as Australia moved from being a set of independent colonies to a federation. Four of the clerical geologists', Johannes Menge, W. B. Clarke, J. E. Tenison Woods and Walter Howchin, made significant contributions to geological science, which deserve to be better known internationally.

Beschreibung: Johann Mathesius (1504-1565) was a Protestant minister in the northern Bohemian mining town of Joachimsthal (now Jachymov in the Czech Republic). His Sarepta oder Bergpostill (1562) is a collection of sermons in which he discussed various aspects of metals, minerals and mining. His description of mineral generation emphasized the gur theory', which arose within the sixteenth-century mining literature and became highly influential in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The sermons contained numerous biblical references to mining and mineral generation. These did not directly correspond to the generative theories he described, and their purpose seems to have been inspirational rather than didactic. In this way, and by presenting the beauty and utility of metallic minerals as an example of God's providence, Mathesius encouraged his congregation of miners to take an interest in the more wondrous aspects of their labours. His work is significant in its consideration of mineral theories, mineral identities and terminology, and as an early example of a providential perspective that characterized many geological ideas of later centuries.

Beschreibung: The favourable reception of the great antiquity of Earth by nineteenth-century Presbyterian theologians in Scotland and the USA has been well documented. Less clear is how their conservative Dutch Calvinist counterparts responded to discoveries about Earth history. Here I initiate an examination of attitudes toward geology among Dutch Reformed theologians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with a case study of Herman Bavinck (1854-1921). Bavinck was arguably the premier Dutch Calvinist theologian of his generation. In his four-volume Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, he discussed geology in relation to biblical teaching about the creation of the Earth. He expressed great appreciation for geology. On several points of textual interpretation, he adopted positions consistent with acceptance of an old Earth. However, working with out-of-date information, and not understanding fundamental geological principles, Bavinck concluded that the concept of an ancient Earth was unacceptable. Bavinck's ideas about geology negatively influenced subsequent Dutch Reformed theologians. Dutch Calvinists, both in the Netherlands and the USA, may have been less open to the discoveries of geology than Scottish and US Calvinists because of the nature of Dutch geology, lack of contact between Dutch theologians and geologists, and Dutch Reformed persuasion that worldviews powerfully shape the content of science.

Beschreibung: The point of departure for this study of the debate on links between sciences and religion is a church newspaper that appeared in Vienna after the revolution of 1848. In it we find the arguments of a particularly conservative journalist and priest (Brunner) who attacked scientific topics, such as evolution and the position of Franz Unger (1800-1871), who was a professor at the University of Vienna and who is a well-known figure in the history of science, because of his numerous contributions to cellular biology, plant physiology, biogeography and palaeobotany, and most of all because of his surveys of pre-Darwinian evolution theory. He was one of the first scientists who tried, in 1852, to suggest the temporal development of the natural world in a visual form. I propose here that the controversy between conservative clergy and liberal academics was invigorated not least because Unger was capable of using Catholic culture to communicate his concepts and representations of evolution and the Earth's development and to make them understandable. In return, Brunner understood how to exploit Unger's work and use Mosaic geology as a counterpoint for his strengthening of Catholic orthodoxy. This debate proves not to be a permanent conflict between religion and science, but to lie within the Viennese Catholic culture within which the protagonists took their stance.

Beschreibung: The Oligocene-Miocene was a time characterized by major climate changes as well as changing plate configurations. The Middle Miocene Climate Transition (17 to 11 Ma) may even have been triggered by a plate tectonic event: the closure of the eastern Tethys gateway, the marine connection between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. To address this idea, we focus on the evolution of Oligocene and Miocene foreland basins in the southernmost part of Turkey, the most likely candidates to have formed this gateway. In addition, we take the geodynamic evolution of the Arabian-Eurasian collision into account. The Mu[s] and Elaz[i][g] basins, located to the north of the Bitlis-Zagros suture zone, were most likely connected during the Oligocene. The deepening of both basins is biostratigraphically dated by us to occur during the Rupelian (Early Oligocene). Deep marine conditions (between 350 and 750 m) prevailed until the Chattian (Late Oligocene), when the basins shoaled rapidly to subtidal/intertidal environment in tropical to subtropical conditions, as indicated by the macrofossil assemblages. We conclude that the emergence of this basin during the Chattian severely restricted the marine connection between an eastern (Indian Ocean) and western (Mediterranean) marine domain. If a connection persisted it was likely located south of the Bitlis-Zagros suture zone. The Kahramanmara[s] basin, located on the northern Arabian promontory south of the Bitlis-Zagros suture zone, was a foreland basin during the Middle and Late Miocene, possibly linked to the Hatay basin to the west and the Lice basin to the east. Our data indicates that this foreland basin experienced shallow marine conditions during the Langhian, followed by a rapid deepening during Langhian/Serravallian and prevailing deep marine conditions (between 350 and 750 m) until the early Tortonian. We have dated the youngest sediments underneath a subduction-related thrust at c. 11 Ma and suggest that this corresponds to the end of underthrusting in the Kahramanmara[s] region, i.e. the end of subduction of Arabia. This age coincides in time with the onset of eastern Anatolian volcanism, uplift of the East Anatolian Accretionary Complex, and the onset of the North and East Anatolian Fault Zones accommodating westward escape tectonics of Anatolia. After c. 11 Ma, the foreland basin south of the Bitlis formed not (or no longer) a deep marine connection along the northern margin of Arabia between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. We finally conclude that a causal link between gateway closure and global climate change to a cooler mode, recorded in the Mi3b event ({delta}18O increase) dated at 13.82 Ma, cannot be supported.

Beschreibung: Previous tectonic models (escape tectonics, topographic ooze) for SE Asia have considered that Himalayan-Tibetan processes were dominant and imposed on cool, rigid SE Asian crust. However, present-day geothermal gradients, metamorphic mineral assemblages, structural style and igneous intrusions all point to east Myanmar and Thailand having hot, ductile crust during Cenozoic-Recent times. North to NE subduction beneath SE Asia during the Mesozoic-Cenozoic resulted in development of hot, thickened crust in the Thailand-Myanmar region in a back-arc mobile belt setting. This setting changed during the Eocene-Recent to highly oblique collision as India coupled with the west Burma block. The characteristics of the orogenic belt include: (1) a hot and weak former back-arc area about 200-300 km wide (Shan Plateau) heavily intruded by I-type and S-type granites during the Mesozoic and Palaeogene; (2) high modern geothermal gradients (3-7 {degrees}C per 100 m) and heat fl ow (70-100 mW m-2; (3) widespread Eocene-Pliocene basaltic volcanism; (4) Late Cretaceous-earliest Cenozoic and Eocene-Oligocene high-temperature-low-pressure metamorphism; (5) c. 47-29 Ma peak metamorphism in the Mogok metamorphic belt followed by c. 30-23 Ma magmatism and exhumation of the belt between the Late Oligocene and early Miocene; (6) a broad zone of Eocene-Oligocene sinistral transpression in the Shan Plateau, later reactivated by Oligocene-Recent dextral transtension; (7) diachronous extensional collapse during the Cenozoic, involving both high-angle normal fault and low-angle normal fault (LANF) bounded basins; (8) progressive collapse of thickened, ductile crust from south (Eocene) to north (Late Oligocene) in the wake of India moving northwards; and (9) the present-day influence on the stress system by both the Himalayan orogenic belt and the Sumatra-Andaman subduction zone.

Beschreibung: Marine sediments hosting gas hydrates are commonly fine-grained (silts, muds, clays) with very narrow mean pore diameters ([~]0.1 {micro}m). This has led to speculation that capillary phenomena could play an important role in controlling hydrate distribution in the seafloor, and may be in part responsible for discrepancies between observed and predicted (from bulk phase equilibria) hydrate stability zone (HSZ) thicknesses. Numerous recent laboratory studies have confirmed a close relationship between hydrate inhibition and pore size, stability being reduced in narrow pores; however, to date the focus has been hydrate dissociation conditions in porous media, with capillary controls on the equally important process of hydrate growth being largely neglected. Here, we present experimental methane hydrate growth and dissociation conditions for synthetic mesoporous silicas over a range of pressure-temperature (PT) conditions (273-293 K, to 20 MPa) and pore size distributions. Results demonstrate that hydrate formation and decomposition in narrow pore networks is characterized by a distinct hysteresis: solid growth occurs at significantly lower temperatures (or higher pressures) than dissociation. Hysteresis takes the form of repeatable, irreversible closed primary growth and dissociation PT loops, within which various characteristic secondary scanning' curve pathways may be followed. Similar behaviour has recently been observed for ice-water systems in porous media, and is characteristic of liquid-vapour transitions in mesoporous materials. The causes of such hysteresis are still not fully understood; our results suggest pore blocking during hydrate growth as a primary cause.

Beschreibung: Much of our knowledge on hydrate distribution in the subsurface comes from interpretations of remote seismic measurements. A key step in such interpretations is an effective medium theory that relates the seismic properties of a given sediment to its hydrate content. A variety of such theories have been developed; these theories generally give similar results if the same assumptions are made about the extent to which hydrate contributes to the load-bearing sediment frame. We have further developed and modified one such theory, the self-consistent approximation/differential effective medium approach, to incorporate additional empirical parameters describing the extent to which both the sediment matrix material (clay or quartz) and the hydrate are load-bearing. We find that a single choice of these parameters allows us to match well both P and S wave velocity measurements from both laboratory and in situ datasets, and that the inferred proportion of hydrate that is load-bearing varies approximately linearly with hydrate saturation. This proportion appears to decrease with increasing hydrate saturation for gas-rich laboratory environments, but increases with hydrate saturation when hydrate is formed from solution and for an in situ example.

Beschreibung: The structurally and stratigraphically complex area of northern and central Iran holds the key to understanding the plate tectonic evolution of the South Caspian-Central Iran area. The closure of the Palaeotethys, the opening of the Neotethys, the rise and demise of the Cimmerian mountain chain, as well as the onset of Neotethys subduction and large-scale Neotethyan back-arc rifting all predated the formation of the more than 20 km-thick fill of the South Caspian Basin. This volume brings together work by specialists in different disciplines of the geosciences (tectonics, geophysics, sedimentology, stratigraphy, palaeontology, basin modelling and geodynamics) in order to elucidate the complex Late Palaeozoic-Cenozoic geodynamic history of the Iran area and the birth of the South Caspian Basin.

Beschreibung: The Cank[i]r[i] Basin straddles the [I]zmir-Ankara-Erzincan Suture Zone which demarcates the former position of the northern branch of the Neotethys. It includes more than 3 km of pre-Middle Miocene in-fill related to late Cretaceous to pre-Middle Miocene evolution of the region. The basin has developed on the upper Cretaceous subduction complex and arc related basins of the Neotethys Ocean. The basin fill includes an upper Cretaceous forearc sequence overlain by Paleocene with a local unconformity. The upper Cretaceous configuration of the Cank[i]r[i] basin is interpreted as a part of a forearc basin. The Paleocene and younger history is interpreted as a foreland sequence dominated by progressively southwards migrated depocenters in front of southward migrating thrust faults upon which a series of piggy-back basins were developed. Termination of the forearc setting and beginning of foreland basin conditions indicates complete subduction of the Neotethyan oceanic crust and onset of collision between the Pontides (Laurasia) and the Taurides (Gondwana) in the Paleocene. Thrusting and related sedimentation continued until the Aquitanian (Early Miocene).

Beschreibung: The Kythira-Antikythira strait, within the SW Hellenic Arc, forms a 100 km long NNW-SSE trending ridge between Peloponnesus and Crete and represents the submarine continuation of the Hellenic Alpine belt. In order to present the shallow as well as the deeper structure of Kythira-Antikythira strait we studied five seismic sections, oriented either parallel or perpendicular to the inner part of the Hellenic Arc. This information was complemented with velocity analyses from a dense network of seismic lines and information concerning the bathymetry. Contractional structures recognized on the seismic profiles indicate that this part of the Gavrovo-Tripolitza geotectonic zone was involved in the Miocene shortening related to the westward propagation of the Hellenic fold-and-thrust system. East-dipping thrust faults which root in the top of the crystalline basement were identified on the seismic profiles. The deepest reflector identified on the profiles corresponds to the crystalline basement. Shallower reflectors include those corresponding to the contacts between the Mesozoic/Miocene, Upper Miocene/Lower Pliocene and Pliocene/Pleistocene sedimentary sequences. The Upper Cenozoic to Quaternary sequence rests unconformably upon Mesozoic carbonates. Messinian intrusions, forming small scale domes, deform the Pliocene-Quaternary sedimentary succession. West- and east-dipping normal faults were also recognised both within the Palaeozoic and Cenozoic successions, and are related to regional extension during sedimentation.

Beschreibung: The mechanics of metamorphic core complex (MCC) development and the associated process of lower crustal flow have been the topic of several modelling studies. The model setup usually includes a local heterogeneity forcing deformation to localize at a given site, enabling only one MCC to develop. This paper presents numerical lithospheric-scale experiments in which deformation is not a priori localized in a specific place, in order to examine whether multiple MCCs could develop during extension, at which conditions, and how. Configurations with either a single MCC or several far-distant MCCs aligned in the section parallel to extension are obtained for a relatively wide range of initial conditions, the only firm requirement being that the lower crust and the sub-Moho mantle both have very low strengths. In contrast, only a narrow range of conditions leads to the development of closely spaced MCCs. In this case, the MCCs interfere with one another (the domes are partly superimposed or/and share a shear zone in common) and develop in sequence. This configuration is compared with the Cyclades archipelago, where closely spaced chains of MCCs have been described in the literature. A review of available data on the islands documents a good agreement with the experiments in terms of final depth of the Moho, geometry and kinematic pattern of the MCCs, and timing of exhumation of the metamorphic rocks. Based on this agreement, we tentatively deduce from the numerical results some of the conditions that prevailed at the initiation of, and during, post-orogenic MCC-type extension in the Cyclades. The most likely initial thickness of the crust is between 40 and 44 km. A thermal lithospheric thickness of only c. 60 km is also likely, which might be a condition at the onset of extension or may have been obtained during early stages of extension while the lithosphere was warmed up. Either a backarc subduction setting or a process of mantle delamination may account for this situation. The numerical results also suggest a boundary velocity of 2.0-2.3 cm/a, which should basically reflect the rate at which the South Hellenic subduction zone retreated. Considering c. 500 km as an upper bound for the amount of retreat balanced by Aegean extension and assuming that this retreat mostly occurred during MCC-type extension in the Cyclades, we find that the boundary velocity could have been as high as 2.1 cm/a if MCC-type extension lasted 24 Ma, starting at c. 30 Ma and finishing at c. 6 Ma, as suggested by available geochronological data. A velocity of 2.1 cm/a agrees well with the numerical results.

Beschreibung: The Eo-Cimmerian orogen results from the Late Triassic collision of Iran, a microplate of Gondwanan affinity, with the southern margin of Eurasia. The orogen is discontinuously exposed along the northern side of the Alborz Mountains of North Iran below the siliciclastic deposits of the Shemshak Group (Late Triassic-Jurassic). A preserved section of the external part of the belt crops out in the Neka Valley (eastern Alborz) south of Gorgan. Here the Mesozoic successions (Shemshak Group-Upper Cretaceous limestones) overlay a pre-Jurassic Eo-Cimmerian thrust stack with a sharp unconformity. The stack includes the Gorgan Schists, an Upper Ordovician-Lower Silurian low-grade metamorphic complex, overthrusted southward above a strongly deformed Late Palaeozoic-Middle Triassic succession belonging to north Iran. In the Talesh Mountains (western Alborz), the Shanderman Complex, previously interpreted as an ophiolitic remnant isolated along the Eo-Cimmerian suture, is considered an allochthonous nappe of deeply subducted continental crust. The new evidence for this is the occurrence of previously unknown eclogites dating to the Carboniferous, and probably related to the Variscan history of Transcaucasia. South of the Shanderman Complex, Upper Palaeozoic slates and carbonates occurring below the Lower Jurassic Shemshak Group also record the occurrence of an Eo-Cimmerian metamorphic event. Based on our new data, the Eo-Cimmerian structures exposed in the Alborz appear to be remnants of a collisional orogen consisting mainly of deformed continental crust where no ophiolites are preserved.

Beschreibung: The Upper Triassic-lower Middle Jurassic Shemshak Group is a siliciclastic unit, up to 4000 m in thickness, which is widespread across the Iran Plate of northern and central Iran. The group is sandwiched between two major unconformities: the contact with the underlying platform carbonates of the Elikah and Shotori formations is characterized by karstification and bauxite-laterite deposits; the top represents a sharp change from siliciclastic rocks to rocks of a Middle-Upper Jurassic carbonate platform-basin system. In the Alborz Mountains, the group consists of a Triassic and a Jurassic unit, separated by an unconformity, which is in part angular in the northern part of the mountain range and less conspicuous towards the south. Published lithostratigraphic schemes are based on insufficient biostratigraphic and lithological information. Here we present a new lithostratigraphic scheme for the central and eastern Alborz Mountains modified and enlarged from an unpublished report produced in 1976. Two major facies belts, a northern and a southern belt running more or less parallel to the strike of the mountain chain, can be distinguished. In the north, the Triassic part of the group is composed of the comparatively deep-marine Ekrasar Formation with the Galanderud Member (new name) at the base followed by the Laleband Formation, which represents prodelta-delta front environments. Up-section, the latter is replaced by the fluvial-lacustrine, coal-bearing Kalariz Formation. The equivalent Triassic lithostratigraphic unit in the south is the Shahmirzad Formation, redefined here, with the Parvar Member at the base. The formation represents fluvial, coastal plain and shallow- to marginal-marine environments. In the north, the Jurassic part of the group consists exclusively of the Javaherdeh Formation, coarse conglomerates of alluvial fan-braided river origin, which towards the south grades into the Alasht Formation, rocks of fluvial-lacustrine origin with coal. Further south, the Alasht Formation represents intertonguing marginal-marine-flood-plain environments and is followed by the Shirindasht Formation, sandstones and siltstones, indicative of the storm-dominated shelf, and the Fillzamin Formation (new), which is characterized by comparatively deep-marine shales. In the south, the group ends with the Dansirit Formation of deltaic-coastal-plain origin. This lithostratigraphic scheme reflects the tectono-sedimentary evolution of the Shemshak Foreland Basin of the Alborz Mountains where, during the Late Triassic, a relict marine basin in the north became gradually infilled, whereas in the south non-sedimentation and subaerial erosion prevailed and sediments record largely non-marine-marginal-marine conditions. During the early Lias, the basin was filled with erosional debris of the rising Cimmerian Mountain Chain, deposited largely in non-marine environments. During the early Middle Jurassic, in contrast, rapid subsidence in the south resulted in the deepening and subsequent infilling of a marine basin.

Beschreibung: Bulk organic geochemical and microscopic studies (Rock-Eval pyrolysis, light transmitted-uv microscope) were carried out on the shales of the Upper Triassic-Middle Jurassic Shemshak Group in the northern, central and southern Alborz Range of northern Iran. Total organic carbon (TOC) values range from 0 to 29.4 wt% (1.2 wt% on average) indicating a generally poor-moderate organic carbon content. Upper Triassic shales in the lower part of the Shemshak Group have been mainly deposited in marine/lake settings under dysoxic-anoxic conditions, with TOC=0.7 wt% on average. Toarcian-Aalenian shales in the upper part of the Shemshak Group were deposited under comparatively deeper marine oxic-dysoxic conditions with the lowest TOC contents recorded (0.3 wt% on average). Carbonaceous shales at different stratigraphic levels of the Shemshak Group show the highest TOC contents (14.2 wt% on average). Tmax values range from 439 to 599 {degrees}C (average 500 {degrees}C), indicating that the organic matter has experienced high temperatures during deep burial and active post-sedimentary tectonics. The hydrogen index (HI)-Tmax diagram shows the presence of Type IV kerogen of altered organic matter with a very low mean HI value. The palynofacies is characterized by the dominance of amorphous organic matter probably predominately derived from degradation of marine-non-marine phytoplankton. The Upper Shemshak Group has low potential to produce petroleum, whereas the Lower Shemshak Group is an important effective petroleum source rock in the Alborz Range. The latter may have generated a considerable amount of petroleum at some localities (e.g. Tazareh and Paland) in the geological past.

Beschreibung: The Lower-lower Middle Jurassic non-marine sedimentary succession of the Binalud Mountains of NE Iran is correlated with the Jurassic part of the Shemshak Group of the Alborz Mountains and subdivided into three formations: the Arefi, the Bazehowz and the Aghounj formations. The succession rests, with angular unconformity, on a metamorphic basement deformed during the Late Triassic Eo-Cimmerian orogeny. The lowermost unit, the Arefi Formation, is subdivided into a lower Derekhtoot Member and an upper Kurtian Member. The Derekhtoot Member (up to 750 m thick) consists of very coarse-grained, chaotic boulder beds, breccias and conglomerates representing rock-fall deposits and proximal-middle alluvial fans, deposited along steep fault scarps. The succeeding Kurtian Member (〉300 m) comprises finer-grained conglomerates with well-rounded clasts, reflecting deposition in a proximal braided river system. The overlying Bazehowz Formation is more than 1000 m thick and consists of vertically stacked, decametre-scale channel-fill cycles of the middle reaches of a braided fluvial system. The uppermost unit, the Aghounj Formation, consists of at least 400 m of granule- to pebble-size, thick-bedded and large-scale trough cross-bedded quartz conglomerates and sandy interbeds of a proximal braided fluvial system. The overall succession fines upwards due to erosion, down to metamorphic basement, of a high-relief source area in the NE, and rests on Cimmerian basement, suggesting that the strata are intramontane deposits of the Cimmerian mountain chain in NE Iran. This interpretation has important implications concerning the position of the NW-SE-trending Eo-Cimmerian suture in NE Iran, which should be placed further SW than formerly assumed.

Beschreibung: The UK faces a major change in the nature of its gas supply as North Sea production declines and the country becomes increasingly reliant upon gas imports. As a result the UK Government recognizes that significant investment in gas supply infrastructure is required to maintain security of supply and manage the gas market. Part of that infrastructure will be additional underground gas storage capacity in specially designed and engineered salt caverns. This paper summarizes the distribution and nature of halite (rock salt) deposits in England and Northern Ireland, and reviews the details of existing and planned storage sites in salt caverns. There is considerable potential for further salt cavern development. However, not all of the UK salt fields are suitable, with the halite beds being too shallow, thin or impure.

Beschreibung: In performing the mechanical integrity test (MIT) on salt cavern storage wells the most used method worldwide is the In-Situ Balance method (ISB). The principal sources of errors in the execution and evaluation of the test are the depth change of the gas/liquid interface and the surface area of the interface. In the past, the interface depth has been predominantly determined using radioactive methods, i.e. gamma-gamma, neutron-gamma and neutron-neutron tools. The disadvantages of these methods are the low measurement accuracy and the need to perform several tool runs during the test period, which introduces an additional source of error, because cost factors normally prevent continuous measurements. A new method (SoMIT) is presented based on ultrasonic techniques in which the interface depth, the temperature and the differential pressure at the interface depth can be measured continuously during the tightness test while achieving much greater levels of accuracy than was previously the case. In the SoMIT method a tool is fixed in place throughout the entire test period such that the problems associated with several tool runs are also avoided. The advantages for users are to be found in the greater accuracy available to verify the tightness of the well and also in the reduced test period.

Beschreibung: The UK became a net importer of gas during 2004 and faces an increasing dependency on imports, yet has very little gas storage capacity. The UKs capacity to import, transport and store gas and liquid natural gas (LNG) has to be improved, requiring greater investment in new gas supply infrastructure. Construction of appropriately sited onshore underground gas storage (UGS) facilities is needed. However, local groups oppose most proposed UGS sites on the grounds of safety, citing the dangers of gas migration and rare fatal events, mostly in America. This paper summarizes 228 reported events of widely varying cause, nature and severity at underground fuel storage (UFS) facilities; the majority at USA SPR facilities. Since UGS was first undertaken in 1915, reports of 13 fatalities, around 72 injured and the evacuation of at least 6700 people are found at UFS sites. Some communities have experienced multiple evacuations. In the context of the danger posed to the general public, three of those killed were staff at two UFS facilities. UGS (including LPG) has led to 10 civilian deaths, 25 injured and c. 1250 evacuated. In other areas of the energy supply chain, casualties are orders of magnitude greater, with at least 1525 dead, 6826 injured and the evacuation of over 7000 at incidents involving above ground fuel storage tanks since 1951. When considering UK UGS applications, the risk of UGS and wider UFS experiences should be put into context. Worldwide, over 90 years experience in UGS now exists, with around 630 facilities of different types currently operational. Technologies used are often those of, or derived from, a well-regulated oil and gas exploration industry. In contrast to public perception, industry and academia recognize that UGS has an excellent health, safety and environmental record. Although it should not be claimed that gas will never be found outside the intended well or storage facility area, UFS casualty figures appear to corroborate claims by supporters of the technologies that salt caverns provide one of the safest answers to the problem of storing large amounts of hydrocarbons and that even in urban areas underground gas storage, oil and gas production can be conducted safely if proper procedures are followed. If gas is found outside the intended system, then after recognition of the problem, mitigation and safe operating procedures can and have been developed.

Beschreibung: The South Caspian Basin is believed to contain more than 20 km of Mesozoic and Tertiary sediments deposited on oceanic or thinned continental crust. Mesozoic, Palaeogene and Oligo-Miocene sediments have not been penetrated within the South Caspian Basin itself but are exposed onshore in the basin margins. The Pliocene-Recent sequence has been mapped on a regionally extensive grid of two-dimensional (2D) seismic data and penetrated by recently drilled exploration wells, and is over 7 km thick. Most of this sequence (6 km) is formed of fluvial-lacustrine deltaic sediments of the Pliocene Productive Series that are deposited unconformably above a marine Miocene shale sequence and form the principal hydrocarbon reservoirs in the basin. The Productive Series is overlain by about 1 km of Late Pliocene-Recent marine sediments The thickness of the Pliocene sedimentary sequence implies that relatively rapid, late Tertiary subsidence occurred in the South Caspian Basin; however, there is no geological evidence of a tectonic event capable of generating a major thermal subsidence event at this time. Modelling presented in this paper suggests that it is possible to account for the observed pattern of subsidence and sedimentation in the South Caspian Basin by a process of sediment loading and compaction on a thermally subsiding, late Mesozoic crust without the need for additional Tertiary subsidence mechanisms. Crucially, this model interprets the Pliocene Productive Series to have been deposited in a topographic depression, isolated from the global oceanic system, in which base level was controlled by local factors rather than by global sea level.

Beschreibung: New data compilations for successive formation scale intervals, approximately third-order sequences, permit a statistical characterization of the ecological-evolutionary subunits (EESUs) or faunas of the Latest Silurian to mid-Late Devonian interval in the Appalachian Basin. Cluster analysis using the Jaccard coefficient of similarity show that certain formations cluster tightly together on the basis of faunal composition while in other cases units are sharply set off from superseding units. This result indicates both the coherence of faunal composition within EESUs and the discreteness of their boundaries. The results also require minor revision of EESUs previously delineated, including the addition of three new units. The Esopus Formation is designated as a distinct unit separate from the Schoharie on the basis of brachiopods from shallow water facies of the Skunnemunk outlier in New York; in addition, a short-lived Stony Hollow fauna is recognized in shallow shelf facies of the Union Springs Formation and coeval units (formerly referred to as the lower Marcellus Formation) and the lower transgressive beds of the overlying Oatka Creek Formation. This fauna, consisting of subtropical Old World Realm (OWR) emigrants, is distinctive from both the underlying Onondaga fauna and that of the overlying Hamilton Group. Moreover, the Tully Formation presents another case of a short-lived incursion of tropical OWR taxa followed by the extermination of this fauna and reappearance of a suite of typically Hamilton taxa. This case illustrates that EESUs may persist globally despite their local extermination or emigration from a large region, such as the Appalachian Basin. Review of the broader context of EESU turnover suggests that these crises are geologically rapid and synchronous. Moreover, most of the Devonian EESU boundaries coincide with recognized global bioevents, within the limits of combined biostratigraphic and sequence stratigraphic resolution. Hence, these crises, although perhaps locally accentuated in the Appalachian Basin, are allied to global causes. They appear mostly to be associated with rapid rises in sea level, periods of widespread climatic change and hypoxic events in basinal areas.

Beschreibung: This paper describes the research undertaken by two local councillors to assess the proposed underground gas storage (UGS) scheme at Welton oilfield, Lincolnshire and the implications for the local community. Compared to the US, where over 300 operational gas storage facilities in onshore depleted fields exist, this form of gas storage is in its infancy in the UK. This has proved to be a challenge for the various agencies involved in the planning process. The councillors have identified a number of planning and safety issues which merit further consideration, including the applicability of the control of major accident hazards (COMAH) regulations, well integrity and the effects of re-pressurization of the oilfield. The proposed UGS facility is in close proximity to residential areas and concern amongst local residents is considerable. The councillors believe that their research has shown that insufficient attention has so far been given to community safety issues. A full and thorough assessment of all potential risks associated with this particular type of UGS needs to be undertaken and appropriate safeguards put in place to protect the local community.

Beschreibung: Following the collapse of the 〉2000 km long Givetian (Middle Devonian) Inuitian/Ellesmere carbonate platform factory in arctic Canada, within the 0{degrees} to 10{degrees} equatorial palaeolatitudes north, the only Frasnian reefs in high arctic Canada retreated westwards, confined to northeastern Banks Island. These reefs, numbering well over 130, and dominated by corals and stromatoporoid sponges, were spread over c. 5000 km2, within the 220 m thick Mercy Bay Formation. Reefs were developed at four different stratigraphic levels (termed the A, B, C and D levels) during early and middle Frasnian time, periodically smothered by intervening siliciclastics during sea-level lowstands, and were finally buried by thick siliciclastic sands, silts and muds derived from the east during the late Frasnian. The Frasnian-Famennian boundary is masked within continental, deltaic facies bearing plant remains. The Banks reef and carbonate succession is preserved as horizontally stratified, in situ limestones, with the succeeding reefs backsteppping towards the east, in response to cyclic Frasnian sea-level rises. The Banks reefs were developed on the distal lobes of a megadelta, periodically covered by extensive lowland forests that stretched more than 2000 km west from Greenland and Ellesmere Island. Reefs are three-dimensionally preserved, unaffected by diagenesis, dolomitization, major tectonics, vegetative cover or glaciation, and thus display some of the finest, pristine Late Devonian reef complexes known. The reefs represent a range of geometries, from small circular to oval patch reefs a few tens of metres in diameter and 〈5-10 m thick, to larger prominent tabular ( reef platform' style) and domal reef structures 〉2 km across, or 300-400 m diameter, and 40-60 m thick. Coral and stromatoporoid-rich biostromes also formed a significant part of the reef seascape. Morphology of the reefs leads to an estimation of penecontemporaneous relief of 10-20 m above the prevailing sea floor, with reef-core facies generally dominated by stromatoporoid sponges, and flank facies by a variable mix of colonial tabulate and rugose corals, as well as stromatoporoids. Bryozoans and calcimicrobialites were rare, in contrast to other Late Devonian reefs such as those of the Canning Basin (Australia), or the Guangxi platform (South China); mudmound reef facies, such as seen in Belgium were limited.