‘Mass extinctions’ and ‘waves of origination’ are defined as peaks in the average probability of family extinction and origination per geologic stage, respectively. A simple neutral model is proposed, assuming only that the average probabilities of family extinction and origination have varied independently and had equal chances of going up and down from one stage to another. As a null hypothesis, this model is not rejected by the available palaeontologic data on marine animal and nonmarine invertebrate families in the Phanerozoic. The only discrepancy between the model and the empirical pattern is due to a systematic bias introduced by Fossil-Lagerstätten. The alleged periodicity of Late Phanerozoic mass extinctions follows inevitably from the model.

A subduction-accretion model incorporating new geophysical data is presented to explain the geology of the Antarctic Peninsula from late Palaeozoic to Cenozoic time. According to the model, the peninsula consists of overlapping accretionary, magmatic and extensional regimes that were diachronous across the peninsula and have built the crust to its present form. The crust, which contains a small proportion of sialic basement, was mainly formed by accretionary and magmatic processes and modified to its present shape by extension. The Gondwanide Orogeny for the Antarctic Peninsula is interpreted in terms of the accretionary processes.

Lower Ordovician rocks in the Bahçe–Fevzipaşa district of the northern Amanos Mountains, previously divided into three separate formations, are referred to the Seydisehir Formation. Shaly strata that crop out southeast of Bahçe and have been termed Kizlaç Formation, Ayran Series or Bahçe Formation, described variously as being of Ordovician or Silurian age, are referred to the lower shale member of the Bedinan Formation; their sparse fauna includes the trilobites Colpocoryphe, Kloucekia and Nobiliasasphus and is of Caradoc age. A single locality containing Kloucekia phillipsii (Barrande, 1846) is shown to be that recorded by Frech in 1916 and subsequently lost sight of.

Structural, petrographic and chemical analyses of a set of northeast-trending quartzofeld-spathic dykes in Wadi Kid area (southeastern Sinai) show that they are the product of anatexis of pelitic rocks. Metamorphic P-T data indicate that anatexis could have occurred only 2 km below the present erosion level. The partial melts intruded into overlying rocks during regional metamorphism along a set of northeast-oriented extensional fractures, thereby recrystallizing and in some cases obtaining tectonite fabrics. The fractures were formed perpendicular to the regional mineral lineation and show that the area was within the deeper parts of the brittle–ductile transition zone. The original depth of the presently exposed crustal level corresponds well with the theoretical and experimentally derived depths of the brittle-ductile transition zone in high heat flow regimes. The emplacement of a granitoid pluton or gneiss dome, possibly of dioritic composition, could be responsible for both melting and tensile fracturing of the overlying rocks.

Basal Turonian Ezeaku Sandstone ridges along the Cenomanian hiatus in Afikpo area contain sandstone pebbles, cobbles, and boulders randomly distributed in nearly all the coarsening upward subfacies of the host units. Contacts with the host sandbody are sharp and, in places, lined with solution grooves. Generally, the angular to subrounded clasts have their 2 mm rims ferruginized, are fine to coarse grained and very strongly bioturbated. They are compositionally and texturally more similar to the adjacent Albian Asu River Group sandunits. These characteristics suggest an extrabasinal origin for these marine sandstone clasts. Albian Asu River Group sediments uplifted by the Cenomanian deformation are the most likely source. The general absence of similar clasts towards the eastern palaeostrandline where the primary Cretaceous source rocks lay is consistent with the interpretation. The remarkable parallelism between the trend of the clast outcrops and the axis of the Santonian anticlinorium (NE–SW) suggests the same axial direction for both tectonic phases.

Lherzolites outcrop throughout the North Pyrenean Zone of the Pyrenees and are everywhere associated with metamorphosed carbonates. It has been suggested that heat from the cooling of the lherzolites was responsible for the high temperature metamorphism of the carbonates. A gravity survey reported here shows that the volume of the lherzolite body at Lers is approximately 0.8 km3. The maximum volume of carbonates that such a body could metamorphose is 3.2 km3. This latter value is so much less than the volume of carbonates inferred from field mapping that the lherzolite body cannot have been the sole source of heat for metamorphism of the carbonates.

It has been suggested from seismic data that there is a step in the Moho beneath the North Pyrenean Fault in the central Pyrenees. Gravity anomalies reported here show that either the step is less than 10 km high or that the density contrast is very low at the base of the crust in the Pyrenees.

Interactive digital processing of satellite images reveals significantly more information than the standard product photographic versions of the same images. Interactively processed images preserve finer details and can show information in areas which appear too dark or too bright on standard product images. This is illustrated by comparisons between both types of image as used in a photogeological interpretation of the tectonics of the Tibetan plateau.

Sectioning Cruziana shows that an intrastratal mode of formation is common, as postulated by Seilacher. Beds with Cruziana are typically composite. Burrows were sometimes washed out and then recast by sand with primary structures. Formation as open surface furrows on an eroded and firmed mud, as postulated by others, is sedimentologically plausible in some instances but is unproven and seems biologically unlikely.