World and Regional Geology – serie

During the Quaternary period, Scandinavia's mountains were the source for repeated glaciation that covered much of eastern, central and western Europe. With a particular emphasis on the four countries of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, this text describes how these glaciations, and their intervening warmer stages, affected Scandinavia and its surrounding areas. In particular, this account focuses on the last cold stage, the Weichselian, with its extensive Late Weichselian glaciation and the subsequent deglaciation, and on the last 10,000 years, the Holocene, with its well documented environmental changes. The Quaternary History of Scandinavia provides a cross-frontier synthesis of how the glaciation affected this vast region, and will be invaluable to students and researchers of Quaternary science.

In this work, 60 specialists come together to discuss the regional occurrences of Jurassic rocks. The tectonic setting, stratigraphical sequences, and fossil assemblages of Jurassic rocks are covered in detail; regional biozones based on palynonorphs, protistans, plants and invertebrates are defined, and super-regional standard zones based on ammonites are established. Numerous tables are used to document and illustrate intra- and inter-continental circum-Pacific correlations, and a large atlas illustrates more than 1,000 circum-Pacific index and guide fossils. Resulting from International Geological Correlation Programme Project 171, not only is this the first comprehensive synthesis of Jurassic geology and palaeontology, but it is in fact the only one of its kind for any geological system. This book will prove indispensable to academic geologists, palaeontologists and stratigraphers interested in the Jurassic period.

This is the first book to deal comprehensively with Spain's tectonic and sedimentary history over the past sixty or so million years. During Tertiary times, Spain had suffered compressional collision between France and Africa, and its Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts had been further modified by extensional rifting. This study will therefore be of interest to earth scientists generally because of the insights it provides into continental crustal deformation. Spain contains some of the best exposed outcrop geology in Europe. Because it includes sectors of two separate foreland basins, and an intervening craton with basins that have been influenced by extensional and strike-slip deformation, it provides excellent material for the development and testing of theories on the study of sedimentary basin formation and filling.

The interval between the Carboniferous and Jurassic is marked by major changes in the structure and character of the Earth, associated with massive earthquakes, volcanic activity, and large scale changes of life at the Permian-Triassic and the Triassic-Jurassic boundaries. In this volume, an international assemblage of geologists reveals a wide range of information about these events in the circum-Pacific, as a conclusion to International Geological Correlation Programme Project 272. They explore the nature of the changes in the Late Palaeozoic and Early Mesozoic, and suggest issues for future investigation through the study of palaeontology, biostratigraphy, tectonics, magmatic and volcanic development, ore deposition, palaeography and climate. As the circum-Pacific region becomes increasingly important for hydrocarbon and mineral exploration, this book will be an invaluable resource for researchers and students.

The sequence of sediments deposited in lakes forms an archive of a high-resolution record of the changes and rates of changes in continental palaeoenvironments. Global Geological Record of Lake Basins is the first in a short series of books containing concise geological summaries of lake basin deposits. Geoscientists worldwide have co-operated to bring together the information available on a global spectrum of lacustrine deposits - looking in particular at palaeoenvironmental aspects. The compilation has resulted from IGCP 219 - Comparative Lacustrine Sedimentology in Space and Time - which has given impetus to the field of limnogeology. Lacustrine deposits are widespread throughout the geological record, and this series of books will assess, for every geological time window, key lacustrine sequences worldwide in the form of short summaries of specific deposits. A common language will be defined to describe these deposits.

Geological Evolution of Antarctica is a collection of papers presented at the Fifth International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences, held under the auspices of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) at Robinson College, Cambridge, 23-28 August 1987. Contributors were invited to address problems related to the tectonic evolution of the Antarctic crust and the palaeoenvironmental evolution of Antartica since the Late Mesozoic. One hundred and seventy two papers and posters were presented, of which one hundred and fifteen are included in this volume. Papers dealing with the crustal development of Antarctica are divided into major geographical areas and arranged in chronostratigraphic order. The first four sections in this group cover the craton, the Transantarctic Mountains, Weddell Sea-Ross Sea region and the Pacific margin; the last addresses aspects of Gondwana break-up. A final group of papers discusses some of the environmental changes arising from the break-up of Gondwana.

Permian and Triassic rocks in the eastern Tethyan region form continuous marine sequences that record the waning phases of the Paleozoic and the early stages of the Mesozoic eras. This book describes and interprets these rocks, summarizing the distribution of major fossil groups in a way that will allow detailed comparison with strata of comparable age in the western Tethys and other parts of the world. The sixteen contributions by forty authors are the culmination of the five-year long International Geological Correlation Programme Project 203. The detailed information presented here is gathered from many areas in the eastern Tethyan region - from France to Australia - and will be of use in the evaluation of the major changes in the global marine biosphere known to have taken place at the end of the Paleozoic era. The stratigraphic record for this fascinating segment of Earth history is not widespread elsewhere in the world and is most continuous in the region covered by this book.

Glacial deposits provide a long-term record of climate and sea level changes on Earth. Detailed study of sedimentary rocks deposited during and immediately after glacial episodes is paramount to accurate palaeoclimatic reconstructions and for our understanding of global climatic and eustatic changes. This book presents new information and interpretations of the ancient glacial record, looking in particular at the Late Proterozoic and Late Paleozoic eras. The influence of global tectonics on the origins and distribution of ice masses and the character of glacial deposits through geologic time is emphasised. Sequence stratigraphic techniques are applied to glaciogenic successions, and explanations for possible low-latitude glaciation during the Late Proterozoic era and the association of carbonate deposits with glaciogenic rocks are put forward. Early interglacial conditions, represented by dark grey mudrocks and ice keel scour features are discussed. These studies, from key workers in International Geological Correlation Program Project 260, will aid the understanding of the Earth's climatic history.