An integrated study of borehole data and outcrop of Mississippian (late Tournaisian to late Viséan) rocks in Co. (County) Galway, western Ireland has enabled a more detailed geological map and lithostratigraphy to be constructed for the region. Several carbonate formations have been distinguished by microfacies analysis and their precise ages established by micropalaeontological investigations using foraminifers and calcareous algae. In addition, palaeogeographic maps have been constructed for the late Tournaisian, and early to late Viséan intervals in the region. The oldest marine Mississippian (late Tournaisian) deposits are recorded in the south of the study region from the Loughrea/Tynagh area and further south in the Gort Borehole; they belong to the Limerick Province. They comprise the Lower Limestone Shale Group succeeded by the Ballysteen Group, Waulsortian Limestone and Kilbryan Limestone Formations. These rocks were deposited in increasing water depth associated with a transgression that moved northwards across Co. Galway. In the northwest and north of the region, marginal marine and non-marine Tournaisian rocks are developed, with a shoreline located NW of Galway City (Galway High). The central region of Co. Galway has a standard Viséan marine succession that can be directly correlated with the Carrick-on-Shannon succession in counties Leitrim and Roscommon to the northeast and east as far as the River Shannon. It is dominated by shallow-water limestones (Oakport, Ballymore and Croghan Limestone Formations) that formed the Galway-Roscommon Shelf. This facies is laterally equivalent to the Tubber Formation to the south which developed on the Clare-Galway Shelf. In the southeast, basinal facies of the Lucan Formation accumulated in the Athenry Basin throughout much of the Viséan. This basin formed during a phase of extensional tectonics in the early Viséan and was probably connected to the Tynagh Basin to the east. In the late Viséan, shallow-water limestones of the Burren Formation extend across much of the southern part of the region. They are characterized by the presence of rich concentrations of large brachiopod shells and colonial coral horizons which developed in predominantly high-energy conditions. These limestones also exhibit palaeokarstic surfaces and palaeosols which formed during regressive conditions of glacio-eustatically controlled cyclicity. Locally, slightly deeper water, lower energy conditions developed on the shelf with the formation of rare bryozoan-rich mud-mounds. Deep-water basinal facies were maintained in the central and southeastern parts of the region between the two shelves with the persistence of the Lucan Formation. Active syn-sedimentary faulting influenced deposition in the Viséan and interfingering of basinal sediments with slumps and shallow-water shelf carbonates are recognized.

Sedimentological and stratigraphic studies of seven stratigraphic sections of Permian Hongyanchi (HYC) and Quanzijie (QZJ) low-order cycles (LCs) in the Tarlong-Taodonggou half graben and Dalongkou area in Bogda Mountains, NW China, demonstrate effective approaches and methodology in cyclo- and time-stratigraphic analyses of complex fluvial-lacustrine deposits in an intracontinental rift setting. A new synchronous stratigraphic unit, the lower QZJ LC is defined. The lower and upper boundaries of this cycle include a regionally correlative disconformity, erosional unconformity, and conformity, across which significant and abrupt changes in palaeoenvironments and tectonic and climatic conditions occurred. The lower boundary is an erosional unconformity and disconformity with a high-relief topography that juxtaposes lacustrine deposits of the underlying HYC LC with the overlying meandering stream deposits of the lower QZJ LC, and was caused by a regional tectonic uplift. The upper boundary is a disconformity and local erosional unconformity and conformity, juxtaposing stacked paleosols developed on fluvial sediments with overlying fluvial and loessial deposits of the upper QZJ LC. The paleosols indicate landscape stability and a prolonged period of subaerial exposure and minimal deposition and suggest that climatic conditions were semi-arid with strong precipitation seasonality in the Tarlong-Taodonggou half graben and subhumid in the Dalongkou area. The fluvial-loessial deposits indicate a renewed tectonic uplift and a change in the atmospheric circulation pattern. The newly-defined lower QZJ LC facilitates accurate palaeogeographic reconstruction in the study area during a period of major tectonic and climatic changes. The interpreted tectonic and climatic conditions provide a critical data point in the mid-latitude east coast of NE Pangea during the Mid-Permian icehouse-hothouse transition. The results demonstrate that a process-response approach is effective in time-stratigraphic analysis of complex fluvial-lacustrine strata in a highly-partitioned rift basin.

The modern Black Sea has a mixed upper layer in the top 150-200 m of the water column, below which the water is anoxic, separated from the mixed layer by a redox boundary. There is limited vertical movement of water. Pyrite framboids form in the water column of the anoxic zone, then have been traditionally interpreted to sink immediately and accumulate in the sediments of the Black Sea. Thus the occurrence of framboids in sediments in the rock record is widely interpreted to indicate poorly oxygenated to anoxic conditions in ancient environments. However, in the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) microbialites of South China, which formed in shallow marine conditions in contact with the atmosphere, the published occurrence of framboids is inconsistent with abundant gastropod and ostracod shells in the microbialite. Furthermore, in the modern Black Sea, (a) framboids may be suspended, attached to organic matter in the water column, thus not settle to the sea floor immediately after formation; and (b) the redox zone is an unstable complex area subject to rapid vertical water movement including occasional upwelling. The model presented here supposes that upwelling through the redox zone can lead to upward transport of suspended pyrite framboids into the mixed layer. Advective circulation could then draw suspended framboids onto the shelf to be deposited in oxygenated sediments. In the Permian-Triassic transition, if framboids were upwelled from below the redox boundary and mixed with oxygenated waters, sediment deposited in these conditions could provide a mixed signal for potentially misleading interpretations of low oxygen conditions. However, stratigraphic sampling resolution of post-extinction microbialites is currently insufficient to demonstrate possible separation of framboid-bearing layers from those where framboids are absent.
Profound differences between microbialite constructors and sequences between the western and eastern Tethys demonstrate barriers to migration of microbial organisms. However, framboid occurrences in both areas indicate upwelling and emphasize vertical movement of water from the lower to upper ocean, yet the mixed layer advective motion may not have been as effective as in modern oceans. In the modern Black Sea, such advection is highly effective in water mixing, and provides an interesting contrast with the PTB times.

The age range of the major intra-plate volcanic event that affected the northern Indian margin in the Early Cretaceous is here defined precisely by detrital zircon geochronology. U–Pb ages of Early Cretaceous detrital zircons found in the Cretaceous to the Paleocene sandstones cluster mainly between 142 Ma and 123 Ma in the northern Tethys Himalayan unit, and between 140 Ma and 116 Ma in the southern Tethys Himalayan unit. The youngest and oldest detrital zircons within this group indicate that volcanism in the source areas started in the latest Jurassic and ended by the early Albian. Stratigraphic data indicate that volcaniclastic sedimentation began significantly earlier in southern Tibet (Tithonian) than in Nepal (Valanginian), and considerably later in Spiti and Zanskar (Aptian/Albian) to the west. This apparent westward migration of magmatism was explained with progressive westward propagation of extensional/transtensional tectonic activity and development of fractures cutting deeply across the Indian continental margin crust. However, detrital zircon geochronology provides no indication of heterochroneity in magmatic activity in the source areas from east to west, and thus lends little support to such a scenario. Westward migration of volcaniclastic sedimentation may thus reflect instead the westward progradation of major drainage systems supplying volcanic detritus sourced from the same volcanic centers in the east. Development of multiple radial drainage away from the domal surface uplift associated with magmatic upwelling, as observed for most large igneous provinces around the world, may also explain why U–Pb ages of detrital zircons tend to cluster around 133–132 Ma (the age of the Comei igneous province) in Tethys Himalayan units, but around 118–117 Ma (the age of the Rajmahal igneous province) in Lesser Himalayan units.