"Displaced or tectonostratigraphic terranes comprise a huge portion of real estate in the North American Cordillera. Terranes are discrete, fault-bound blocks of regional extent, with rocks and fossils that differ to a great extent from those of adjacent blocks. The allochthonous nature of most terranes, relative to adjacent craton, is well established. When mapped, they resemble a collage of mixed rock types, tectonic styles, metamorphism, and volcanic origins--each part resembling the pieces of a puzzle. Terrane studies remain integral to understanding the geological evolution of western North America. Since the initiation of the concept summarized in 1979 by the late David L. Jones, the significance of fossils and stratigraphy has been key to solving the puzzle. Chapters of this book written by experts in their field, provide a sense of the diversity of approaches in paleontology and stratigraphy. Contributions span geologic time from the Precambrian (Vendian) to Cretaceous and address over 20 Cordilleran terranes."--Publisher's website.

This volume summarizes the state of the art of Variscan geology from Iberia to the Bohemian Massif. The European Variscan belt consists of two orogens: the older, northern and the younger, southern. The northern Variscan realm was dominated by Late Devonian–Carboniferous rifting, subduction and collisional events as defined by sedimentary records, crustal growth, recycling of continental crust and large-scale deformations. In contrast, the southern European crust was reworked by major Late Carboniferous collision followed by Permian wrenching. The Late Carboniferous–Permian orogeny overprinted the previously accreted system in the north, but with much lower intensity, resulting in magmatic recycling and extensional tectonics. These two main orogenic cycles do not reflect episodic evolution of a single orogenic system but a complete change in orientation of stress field, thermal regime, degree of reworking and recycling of European crust, reflecting a major switch in plate configurations at the Early–Late Carboniferous boundary.

Volume 1 focuses on the evolution of Central Europe from the Precambrian to the Permian, a dynamic period which traces the formation of Central Europe from a series of microcontinents that separated from Gondwana through to the creation of Pangaea. Separate summary chapters on the Cadomian, Caledonian and Variscan orogenic events as well as on Palaeozoic magmatism provide an overview of the tectonic and magmatic evolution of the region. These descriptions sometimes extend beyond the borders of Central Europe to take in the Scottish and Irish Caledonides as well as the Palaeozoic successions in the Baltic region.

This book is devoted to different aspects of tectonic researches, especially to modern geodynamic processes. Syntheses of recent and earlier works, combined with new results and interpretations, are presented here for diverse tectonic settings. Most of chapters include up-to-date materials of detailed geological-geophysical investigations, which can help more clearly understand the essence of mechanisms of different tectonic processes. Among general problems of tectonics are discussed processes in axes of slow-spreading mid-ocean ridges on example of central part of Mid-Atlantic Ridge and in continental collision zones. Formation of sedimentary basins are considered on examples of Niger Delta, Triassic Cuyana Basin (Argentina), and Mesozoic and Cenozoic basins of the Alpine margin (Tunisia); neotectonic processes examined in Turkey and Morocco; tectonic evolution of the southern margin of Laurasia in the Paleozoic discussed as well as interrelation of western Troms-Lofoten and the Lewisian complexes in the Midle Paleoproterozoic.

Ichnology is the study of traces created in the substrate by living organisms. This is the first book to systematically cover basic concepts and applications in both paleobiology and sedimentology, bridging the gap between the two main facets of the field. It emphasizes the importance of understanding ecologic controls on benthic fauna distribution and the role of burrowing organisms in changing their environments. A detailed analysis of the ichnology of a range of depositional environments is presented using examples from the Precambrian to the recent, and the use of trace fossils in facies analysis and sequence stratigraphy is discussed. The potential for biogenic structures to provide valuable information and solve problems in a wide range of fields is also highlighted. An invaluable resource for researchers and graduate students in paleontology, sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy, this book will also be of interest to industry professionals working in petroleum geoscience.