Abstract The Palaeozoic motion of the future Arctic continents is presented in the animation found in the accompanying CD-ROM. The animation shows snapshots of the motion of the tectonic blocks from 550 to 250 Ma in 3 million year steps. The locations of the blocks are controlled mainly by palaeomagnetic pole values for the blocks tied to known geological events, particularly the three main Arctic orogenies: the Scandian Caledonian which began in the Silurian, the Ellesmerian in the Late Devonian and the Uralian that began in the Late Pennsylvanian. Perhaps the most significant observation to come out of the animation is that the future Arctic continents were never very far from one another during the Palaeozoic. The maximum distance from Baltica to Laurentia may have reached 6000 km during the Middle Cambrian but the Arctic continents all surrounded the same eastern Iapetus Ocean and, by Silurian, they were quite close. Reliance on the ‘Y-loop’ palaeomagnetic data causes extremely rapid motion of Gondwana during the Silurian. Consequently the ‘X-path’ for that period is used. The palaeomagnetic poles for 422 and 406 Ma have been eliminated so that Gondwana motion is within the bounds of present day plate motion. Supplementary material: A Quicktime™ movie of palaeogeographic and tectonic evolution of the Arctic region during the Palaeozoic is available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18472 .

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Abstract We present a new tectonic fabric map of the Southern Ocean south of 45°S derived from Geosat altimeter profiles and published bathymetric charts and magnetic anomaly picks. The interpretation of the Geosat data is based on an analysis of the first derivative of the geoid profiles (i.e., vertical deflection profiles). To improve the accuracy and resolution of the vertical deflection profiles, 22 repeat cycles from the first year of the Geosat/Exact Repeat Mission (Geosat/ERM) were averaged. At wavelengths less than about 200 km, the vertical deflection is highly correlated with sea-floor topography and thus reveals major features in areas that were previously unsurveyed. The density of the Geosat data is greatest in the high latitudes where lineated bathymetric features such as fracture zones, spreading ridges, trenches, and rifted margins stand out. To construct the tectonic fabric chart, the Geosat data are analyzed in combination with available shipboard bathymetric data and magnetic anomaly identifications.