The organic-rich shales and mudstones composing the Miaolingian (‘middle’ Cambrian) through Tremadocian (Lower Ordovician) Alum Shale Formation have been extensively mined for production of alum at Andrarum in southeastern Scania (Skåne), southern Sweden. Here, the formation was exploited between 1637 and 1912, and a brief account is given of the history of the exploitation. The alum industry had its heyday in the mid-1700s when it was owned by Christina Piper (1673–1752). During this time some 900 people lived within the working area, and it had its own craftsmen, school, hospital and courthouse with a jail annex. The undeformed and virtually continuous succession at Andrarum is generally richly fossiliferous and, albeit largely covered by scree and vegetation, best exposed in the old quarries. The fossil faunas are dominated by trilobites and agnostoids, which form the basis for a detailed biostratigraphical framework. The history of geological and palaeontological research at Andrarum, since the pioneering works in the mid- to late 1800s, is reviewed. The sequence of strata was first elucidated by Alfred Gabriel Nathorst in 1869. Since then, the succession and its fossil content have been studied by a considerable number of influential researchers, such as Gustaf Linnarsson (1841–1881), Sven Axel Tullberg (1852–1886) and Anton H. Westergård (1880–1968). In the decades around the turn of the 21st century, Euan Clarkson initiated a number of projects focusing on the ontogeny, evolution and functional morphology of olenid trilobites from the Furongian at Andrarum, along with two important studies dealing with faunal dynamics and biotic turnovers. His research resulted in a series of pivotal papers on the geology and palaeontology of the Alum Shales.

The increasing pollution of water bodies by tetracycline (TC) has emerged as a looming threat to both environmental sustainability and human health, and the development of novel and effective remediation techniques is essential. The purpose of the present research was to explore the potential of montmorillonite (Mnt) and ZnO/Mnt composites as cost-effective and eco-friendly adsorbents for the removal of TC from polluted water sources. Batch adsorption experiments were carried out under controlled laboratory conditions, where adsorption isotherms, kinetic studies, and zero-charge point (pHzcp) determinations were performed systematically to evaluate the performance of ZnO, Mnt, and ZnO/Mnt composites. The results highlighted the underlying importance of surface charge to adsorption by establishing pHzcp for ZnO, Mnt, and the ZnO/Mnt composite. The effects of pH on the surface charge of adsorbents (ZnO, Mnt, and the ZnO/Mnt) and the equilibrium structure of TC were measured systematically and trends that are imperative for understanding the dynamics of adsorption were identified. The removal efficiencies of TC at the optimal pH of 5 were 100% for Mnt, 70% for ZnO/Mnt, and 4% for ZnO. Mnt exhibited the greatest adsorption capacity (125 mg g–1), particularly effective within the pH range of 3–7, demonstrating its strong potential for pollutant removal. However, the ZnO/Mnt composite, although showing a lower adsorption capacity (72 mg g–1), offers additional advantages due to the photocatalytic properties of ZnO. Under light irradiation, ZnO promotes the mineralization of adsorbed TC into harmless products such as CO₂ and H₂O, thereby reducing the risk of secondary pollution. While Mnt alone efficiently captures TC, the lack of degradation may pose environmental challenges. By integrating adsorption with photocatalysis, the ZnO/Mnt composite provides a more sustainable, dual-functional approach, highlighting the significance of coupling pollutant capture with degradation for effective and eco-friendly water treatment.

The length of time that cemeteries were used provides important insights into the persistence of social identities and how communities situate themselves in the landscape. In Bronze Age Europe, the duration of use of cemeteries is an important line of evidence to assess the role of mortuary practices in a time of social change across the continent. This study presents new dates and a Bayesian model of cremation at a Middle Bronze Age (2000–1500 BCE) cemetery in Transylvania (Romania). The cemetery at Limba-Oarda de Jos-Șesul Orzii is the largest known cemetery associated with the Wietenberg culture in Transylvania during the Middle Bronze Age. Unlike Early Bronze Age cemeteries and other Middle Bronze Age cemeteries elsewhere in the Carpathian Basin where burial activity often continued for over 500 years, the duration of use of Limba-Oarda de Jos-Șesul Orzii was much briefer. The cemetery formed within 160 years; we argue closer to 50–100 years. This use life is similar to the nearby Wietenberg cremation cemetery at Sebeș and stands in contrast to mortuary practices in previous time periods and other contemporaneous regions. The short duration of burial activity, and subsequent abandonment of the site, has ramifications for understanding Middle Bronze Age settlement patterns, mortuary rituals, and the dynamics around emerging inequality in Transylvania and beyond.

About three dozen specimens of the synziphosuran Limuloides limuloides (Woodward 1865) have been collected from Silurian strata in the Welsh Borderland since 1855, making it a rather rare component of the fauna. Most of these specimens are incomplete, mainly isolated prosomas. Here, a new specimen of the species is described from a single part (no counterpart). It is an articulated prosoma and opisthosoma, lacking a telson, and in apparently full relief. It comes from the lowermost Aston Mudstone Formation (Wenlock: Homerian, probably nassa zone), from a locality close to Aston Dingle near Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire, which is a new locality for L. limuloides, and the specimen is only the third known for this species in the Wenlock.

The Silurian inliers of the Pentland Hills contain abundant and diverse fossil assemblages and have interested geologists for more than 150 years. However, the faunas are very different from those found in the classic Anglo-Welsh area or the Spanish El Pintado Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the Telychian Stage in peri-Gondwana. Initial geological exploration of the hills found few fossils, with little meaningful interest shown in the area until Dr Archibald Lamont, a controversial Scottish geologist, began researching the inliers. Lamont was the first to suggest that the rocks might be upper Llandovery rather than Wenlock, and went on to propose that their unique fossil assemblages warranted a new division being erected between the Llandovery and Wenlock series, which he named the ‘Pentlandian’. This new division was rejected by the international geological community. Euan Clarkson’s arrival in Edinburgh and his introduction to the Pentland Hills began what would be a lifetime’s fascination with the geology of the area. He instigated an extensive series of research projects and recruited researchers looking at the geology and a wide range of fossil groups, the most abundant of which is the Brachiopoda. The Telychian Wether Law Linn Formation in particular contains many shelly and graptolite faunas enabling correlation. The palaeocommunities identified suggest a deeper-water palaeoenvironment with finer-grained siliciclastic sediments set in a regressive marine sedimentary succession. Multivariate analyses show the mutual proximity of the Pentland associations and their distinctiveness from other Llandovery faunas. The Pentlandian is considered a regional term but the distinctive nature of the Pentlandian biotas, on a global scale, is confirmed and introduced here as the Pentlandian Biotic Complex.

This study reviews Crangopsis based on newly collected material from Carlops, Bearsden (and equivalent exposures of the same horizon), Granton and Ardross and a redescription of older collections mostly held in The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, Scotland. Two new species, Crangopsis carlopsensis sp. nov. and Crangopsis baljaffrayensis sp. nov., are described based on diagnostic character differences such as the shape of the pleura on the pleon. Newly observed structures on Crangopsis include a short acute ridge of unknown purpose on the pleonal pleura, a short rostrum, a vertical straight cervical groove on the carapace, as well as several thoracic body segments (thoracomeres) that do not appear to be attached to the carapace. The eight paired thoracopods and two maxillipeds and the separate thoracomeres indicate that Crangopsis is an early member of the Mysidacea.

The study of morphological disparity is a powerful tool for exploring evolutionary and ecological patterns and processes. Disparity is usually quantified from empirical morphospaces, often constructed from a single anatomically independent structure. However, results can differ depending on the analysed structure, raising the question of whether morphospaces from different structures converge on a common pattern. To address this, we analysed geometric morphometric data of Silurian–Permian trilobites available in TriloMorph, a collaborative database of trilobite morphogeometric information. Trilobites are an ideal model for this question because their segmented body plan is composed of distinct tagmata, offering a unique opportunity to compare morphospaces derived from different morpho-functional structures and landmark configurations. Here, we examined morphospace occupation using alternative morpho-functional configurations of the cephala and pygidia, including both outlines and internal structures. Our results show that the cephalic outline alone captures much of cephalic disparity but fails to reflect the variability revealed by internal cephalic structures, indicating that some aspects of morphological diversity are overlooked when relying exclusively on outlines. Cephalic and pygidial morphospaces are poorly correlated, reflecting that each tagma represents different aspects of biological variation. Our analysis highlights the need to consider multiple aspects of the trilobite body plan to capture the full extent of trilobite disparity. Future methods integrating multiple structures are essential for achieving a more comprehensive understanding of trilobite morphological diversity.

The macrofossil record of the lower Palaeozoic Stavelot-Venn Inlier is revised. This inlier is the largest of the four inliers of the Ardenne Allochthon in southern Belgium and northern France, and it extends from southeastern Belgium into western Germany. The thick succession of mostly siliciclastic rocks has been traditionally assigned to the lower Cambrian to Middle Ordovician, but macrofossils are extremely rare and the microfossil (acritarch) records need revision. The presence of the ichnogenus Oldhamia indicates an early/middle Cambrian age for the lower (but not lowest) part of the succession. The graptolites from the Rhabdinopora fauna clearly point out the presence of the Tremadocian (Lower Ordovician) strata; they are locally associated with small linguliformean brachiopods (e.g., Broeggeria, Lingulella). The present revision, based on examination of the Belgian material, indicates that none of the trilobite, phyllocarid and sponge records in the literature can be confirmed. From all macrofossils mentioned in the literature, only few linguliformean brachiopod levels can be confirmed in the (? middle–upper) Cambrian and in the Lower Ordovician. The alleged bivalve from the Cambrian of the French part of the Rocroi Inlier is reillustrated.

A long-term research programme, spurred on first by Euan Clarkson, into controls upon the development of the middle Silurian trilobite Aulacopleura koninckii (Barrande 1846) has allowed insights into the processes by which exoskeletal segment size and shape were generatively controlled that are remarkable for a fossil of some 429 million years old. Competing hypotheses for the nature of the growth controls have been tested and resolved. These results provide palaeontological contributions to evolutionary developmental biology. Here the principal and widely scattered publications resulting from this effort are briefly summarised and reflected upon. This essay provides a contemporary, synoptic overview of our published literature on the development and life of this animal.

We used AMS 14C dating to determine the age of the composite wedge formation in the Batagay Upper Sand unit. The composite wedges are interpreted as syngenetic structures; they have grown vertically upward with aggradation of the host sandy deposits. The formation of composite wedges in Upper Sand commenced no later than 38.3 cal ka BP and stopped not earlier than 25.5 cal ka BP in the northwestern part of the slump. In the formation of ice wedges within the Upper Sand, frost cracks extended to a depth of 5–7 m, surpassing the normal depth of 3–4 m observed in the Upper Ice Complex. The composite ice wedges in the Upper Sand formed at temperatures ranging from –47 to –54°C, as evidenced by the paleotemperature reconstruction of the isotope composition of the Upper Ice Complex’s ice wedges.

The first known trochurine lichid from the Lower Devonian of southern France is assigned to the genus Branikarges Basse & Müller, 2023, replacing the invalid genus Lobopyge Přibyl & Erben. Branikarges euanclarksoni sp. nov. occurs in cherty limestones of the upper Emsian middle Izarne Formation in the Cabrières klippes, in the southeast of the Montagne Noire. Among the few contemporary representatives of typical Branikarges, the new species is closest to north Gondwana related taxa. Silicified early growth stages assigned to B. euanclarksoni have been recovered from the middle Bissounel Formation, a temporal equivalent of the middle Izarne Formation in the Montagne Noire nappe succession. The material includes, besides a questionable metaprotaspis, some meraspid cranidial fragments, librigenae and hypostomes, as well as an almost complete succession of transitory pygidia. This material allows for the first establishment of the meraspid stage development of Branikarges through applying the distribution model of spine markers on alternate pleurae developed by B. D. E. Chatterton in 1971.

The Lower Palaeozoic successions of the Southern Uplands of Scotland are well known for graptolitic shales such as those of Dob’s Linn and Hartfell Score. Less well known are the Ordovician shelly fossils, predominately preserved in mudstones and conglomerates of the Sandbian Kirkcolm Formation at Kilbucho and Wallace’s Cast. Rare carbonate facies from the Wrae Limestone within the Tweeddale Member, Shinnel Formation preserve limestone olistoliths containing probable shelly faunas and conodonts from an otherwise unknown source. Trilobites, brachiopods and conodonts from the Southern Uplands have been the subject of some recent research, but other shelly faunas have received less attention. These include the mollusc faunas, consisting mainly of bivalves and gastropods. A review of the mollusc fauna supports faunal evidence from brachiopods that the Kirkcolm Formation was close to Pomeroy, Tyrone and sampled deeper water environments than was originally thought.