The Cambrian Alum Shale Formation in the Andrarum-3 core from Scania, southern Sweden, consists of black siliciclastic mudstone with minor carbonate intercalations. Four facies comprise three siliciclastic mudstones and one fine-grained carbonate. The facies reflect deposition along a transect from deep ramp to basin on a Cambrian shelf. The three mudstone facies contain abundant clay clasts and laterally variable siltstone laminae. Bed-load transport processes seem to have dominated deposition on this deep shelf. These sedimentary rocks record mainly event deposition, and only relatively few, thin laminae probably resulted from suspension settling. The Alum Shale Formation deep shelf did not show a bioturbation gradient, but fecal strings are common and Planolites burrows are rare in all mudstone facies. Evidence for biotic colonization indicates that this mudstone environment was not persistently anoxic, but rather was most likely intermittently dysoxic. The Alum Shale Formation in the Andrarum-3 core shows an overall decrease of grain size, preserved energy indicators, and carbonate content upsection interpreted to reflect a deepening upward. The succession can also be divided into four small-scale fining-upward cycles that represent deepening, and four overlying coarsening-upward cycles that represent upward shallowing.

Abstract Graptolite faunas exhibited strong biogeographical differentiation during the Early Palaeozoic, particularly in the Ordovician. Skevington recognized two major faunal provinces, the high to mid palaeolatitude ‘Atlantic Province’ and the low-palaeolatitude ‘Pacific Province’. Subsequent workers have generally accepted this pattern of graptolite distribution, but the controls on this pattern have been the subject of considerable debate. Two competing models have emerged: a surface water temperature model and a depth stratification model. It is likely that the some of the physical and chemical oceanic factors that vary with latitude may also vary in a similar way along an onshore to offshore transect. Hence, it may be that both depth and surface temperature play an important role in biogeographical differentiation. Biogeography also played a critical role in the evolutionary history of graptoloids. Important examples include the origination of axonophorans in deep, offshore environments from isograptid and pseudisograptid ancestors and their subsequent migration into shallow water regions; the replacement of the Diplograptina by Neograptina in the low palaeolatitudes during the Late Ordovician extinction event; and the origination of expansograptids in the ‘Atlantic’ Province as shallow water endemics followed by their worldwide dispersal into the oceanic biofacies.

Abstract In an overview of the Silurian of Central Europe, it is important to realize that during this period the study area was spread more widely over the globe than nowadays because at least two oceans were present in the area which have since disappeared. Several palaeocontinents such as Baltica or Gondwana, smaller palaeo-plates such as Avalonia and Far Eastern Avalonia, and Peri-Gondwana terranes such as Perunica, were separated by the Tornquist Sea and the Rheic Ocean. These palaeocontinents were brought together in the present-day configuration by closing of the oceans and the subsequent orogenic collisions, respectively termed the Caledonian and Variscan orogenies. Plate movements before and during the Alpine orogeny also brought pieces of northern Gondwana into the study area. These Proto-Alps are now included in the basement of the Alps and are observable in several tectonic windows (e.g. Carnic Alps).