Palaeogeography is one of the fundamental disciplines of the Earth sciences. It was revolutionized with the development of plate tectonics and the science of palaeomagnetism. It provides the foundation for palaeoenvironmental analyses and is key to understanding how life has evolved on Earth. As a large country in the world, much palaeogeographic information pertains to China. With the outstanding recent work on Chinese palaeogeography, many new papers containing fascinating insights have been published. By integrating with numerous global pal-aeogeographic analyses these will play a key role in understanding Earth history and the development of natural resources. The editorial team of the Journal of Palaeogeography is to be strongly congratulated in launching this new journal which will significantly enhance our understanding of palaeogeograpy in China and worldwide.

Palaeogeographic analysis plays such a fundamental role in geological sciences, involving detailed studies on sedimentary basins and petroleum exploration, recontructing past continents, oceans and climates, as well as the biological evolution of extinct species. With so much research now focusing on reconstructing the geographical features of the geological past, particularly in the vast area of China, the launch of the Journal of Palaeogeography is a most welcome development. It will provide a much needed platform for dissemination of important information related to Chinese palaeogeography to a global audience. This, in turn, should help stimulate collaboration between Chinese scientists and scientists from the rest of the world, leading to the publishing of their research on international palaeogeographical themes in this new niche journal. The Journal’s aim as a quarterly journal is to publish high quality academic papers with high quality illustrations. This will undoubtedly help in establishing it as a high ranking journal in the future.

The ultimate objective of fundamental research in the earth sciences is to reconstruct the geological history of the entire Earth. Essentially this implies that we want to know how Earth’s palaeogeography developed through time. Consequently, palaeogeography should be considered as one of the most fundamental disciplines of the Earth sciences. Because a palaeogeographical analysis requires a deep insight into all the geological processes that affected a specific study area in the course of geological time, palaeogeography is, however, also one of the most complicated earth-science disciplines. No wonder that so few journals take this subject as their main point of focus. We consider it therefore of great importance that China, with its large areal extent that comprises so many geologically completely different areas, now has established an international journal dealing with this topic. The editors of Geologos congratulate the editorial team of the Journal of Palaeogeography with their initiative, and wish that the journal will contribute to the exchange of significant palaeo-geographical information between China and the rest of the world.

As an important branch of geosciences, palaeogeography has greatly advanced the petroleum industry in China. China University of Petroleum (Beijing) has a very strong faculty team in palaeogeography and sedimentology. The Journal of Palaeogeography (in Chinese) sponsored by China University of Petroleum (Beijing) as a core journal in China has made significant contributions to the advancement of palaeogeographical study in China. The launch of the new Journal of Palaeogeography (in English) will surely promote the development of palaeogeography and accelerate the international academic exchange in the field. Holding high quality international academic journals is one of the goals of China University of Petroleum (Beijing). The university is to provide full support to the Journal of Palaeogeography in human, financial and material resources and promote the journal into one of the leading international journals.

The Journal of Palaeogeography has three missions. The first is to encourage articles of Chinese palaeogeography to go abroad by the Journal, and let foreign readers know more about Chinese palaeogeography. The second is to encourage articles of foreign palaeogeography to come in China by the Journal, and let Chinese readers know more about foreign palaeogeography. The third is to promote the communication and cooperation be-tween these two aspects, in order to make great contribution to the development and innovation of Chinese and international palaeogeography. Our journal has four advantages. The first is that the published articles are not restricted to one palaeo or three palaeos, but include many palaeos. The second is that most articles will be from China. The high academic level articles of Chinese palaeogeography going aborad will be an excellent contribution to international palaeogeography. The third is the close relationship between the scientific research and industrial practice. The fourth is that we have two journals, i.e. Journal of Palaeogeography (in Chinese) and Journal of Palaeogeography (in English). These two journals coordinate with each other and should promote the development and innovation of palaeogeography more effectively. So long as we can adhere to high academic standards, high English standards and high editorial standards, our journal will present our contribution to the Chinese and international palaeogeography.

A study of using climate sensitive deposits as a compiled climatic data to locate global climatic belt boundaries through time is developed by the present authors since the 1990s. Global latitudinal belts were presented from Cambrian to Permian as well as the interval from the early Late Cretaceous to the present. However, during the later Permian and into the Early Cretaceous we noted that the failure of the tropical-subtropical belt to penetrate into the interior of Pangaean resulted in the merging of the two arid belts associated with the northern and southern Hadley Cells into one vast, interior arid region. A Pangaeanic paleogeography dominates and obviously affects the climatic distribution from the Late Permian to Early Cretaceous. We employ the dismission and reoccurrence of the global latitudinal climate belts to determine the aggregation and disaggregation of the Pangaean.

Large ripples are described from the Mesoproterozoic Hilfordy Formation in the Kimberley region, northwestern Australia. Both ripple index (RI) and ripple symmetry index (RSI) suggest the Kimberley ripples were likely generated by storm waves. Their wave height is up to 15?23 cm and wave length is up to 70?90 cm. These features, incorporated with other morphological characteristics such as symmetry, steepness, ripple spacing, and compositions, agree well with the megaripples previously reported from the intertidal-nearshore settings of modern seas and the geological past. The Mesoproterozoic ripples were likely generated by the storm-induced flows. Literature survey of the global record of megaripples reveals that such structures have occurred through the geological past from the Archean to present day. They were particularly common in the Neoproterozoic and had the largest ripple length and ripple height among the modern and geological records. This is probably because extreme storms prevailed at that time. Their frequent occurrence in present day beach is probably due to the prevalence of extreme storms caused by the monsoon or tsunami/earth?quake influenced climatic regimes.

The Carboniferous period was a unique period for reef developments during the Late Paleozoic; however, in past years, studies dealing with the Carboniferous reefs in China were very rare. In recent years, the Carboniferous reefs were studied in detail and diverse types of reefs have been discovered in different areas of China. In these areas, the Mississippian reefs were primarily built of bryozoans and rugose corals, which were associated with various kinds of calcareous algae. During the Pennsylvanian, in South China, the reef builders were composed of the rugose coral Fomichevella and phylloid algae, whereas in North China, the reef builders were composed of Chaetetes, bryozoans and corals. There are two main reef-building communities within Carboniferous reefs in China; an algal reef-building community and a reef-building community dominated by colonial coral. No evolutionary rela-tionships between these two types of communities can be detected, thus indicating that two different linerages of reef-building communities evolved during the Carboniferous; the former community consists of cyanobacteria, bacteria and calcareous algae, while the latter one consists of various skeletal metazoan organisms. Through careful study of the developments of Chinese Carboniferous reefs, the evidence indicates that various communities of organisms played important reef-building functions during this period. The occurrence of these metazoan framework reefs also indicates that, during the Carboniferous, most areas in China would have been dominated by the environments with a tropical or subtropical climate.

The present study deals with the planktonic foraminiferal biostratigraphy of the Miocene–Pliocene sequence of three petroleum exploration wells (BY7-1-1, KP6-1-1 and KP9- 1-1) in the Pearl River Mouth Basin (PRMB). In general, the three wells contain a fairly well-preserved, abundant foraminiferal fauna. The proposed planktonic foraminiferal zonation follows the scheme updated by Wade et al. (2011). Nineteen planktonic foraminiferal zones have been recognized, 14 zones (zones M1-M14) for the Miocene and 5 zones (zones PL1-PL5) for the Pliocene. The zonation is correlated with previously published biostratigraphic subdivisions of the Neogene succession in the PRMB and with international foraminiferal zonations. The zonal boundaries are mostly defined by the last appearance datum of zonal taxa of planktonic foraminifera, which is more reliable than the FAD (first appearance datum) events for ditch cutting sampling. Changes in the coiling of Globorotalia menardii (s. l.) are also used to define the zonal boundaries, where no LADs (last appearance datum) are available. The Fohsella fohsi group, comprising useful taxa for delimiting zonal boundaries of the middle Miocene in other areas, has a poor record within the Pearl River Mouth Basin due to unfavorable ecological conditions, and cannot be used for the studied wells. Different from the previously reported zonal scheme for the PRMB, the present zonation is based on correlation with the current standard planktonic foraminiferal zonation, with calibrated absolute ages.

Palaeokarst within the Lower to Middle Ordovician Goodwin Formation, Pogonip Group (upper Ibexian-lower Whiterockian) was examined in detail at Meiklejohn Peak, Nevada USA in order to determine its origin, evolution, and relationship to sea level change. Detailed outcrop and petrographic examination of dolostone breccias and host rock reveals that palaeokarst was formed and affected by two distinct cycles of sea level change. A relative transgression resulted in deposition of lagoonal, ooid shoal, and shallow subtidal facies as sea level rose. Exposure of the carbonate platform led to the formation of multiple phreatic caves below the water table, as well as the development of numerous vadose conduits from the downward percolation of meteoric waters. Vadose water flow through early cave-wall and cave-roof collapse breccias resulted in rounding of smaller breccias clasts via physical transport and corrosion, while subsidence of subsurface karst led to the formation of a pa-laeodoline at the exposure surface. A second relative transgression deposited lagoonal sediments over the older karst; subsequent re-exposure of the carbonate platform resulted in the development of small breccia pockets as well as grikes within the youngest lagoonal sediments, and may have led to further corrosion of the older, deeper subsurface karst. The distal location of the study area within the carbonate platform suggests karst formation was the result of a substantial drop in relative sea level; the presence of multiple generations of palaeokarst imply that at least two higher-frequency cycles of sea-level change overprint the larger regression.

The Mesoproterozoic Wumishan Formation, composed of dolomite is a widely distributed stratigraphic unit in the Beijing area. It was formed over a long period of time in the Yan-Liao aulacogen, a stable peritidal environment that was ideal for recording earthquakes in the form of soft-sediment deformation structures (SSDS). Numerous examples occur in the upper part of the Wumishan Formation, along the Yongding River Valley. In addition, brittle structures include intrastratal fault and seismically cracked breccias. The soft-sediment de-formation structures include liquefied features (diapirs, clastic dykes, convolute bedding), compressional deformation features (accordion folds, plate-spine breccias, mound-and-sag structures), and extensional plastic features (loop-bedding). Based on the regional geological setting and previous research, movements along the main axial fault of the Yan-Liao aulacogen are considered as the triggers for earthquakes since the Early Mesoproterozoic. The number and distribution of the SSDS suggest the major earthquake frequency in the Wumishan Formation of 20 to 32 thousand years.