Abstract Although the Rheic Ocean was the widest to be closed during the assembly of Pangaea, its suture zone is dominated by a younger (Rhenohercynian) Wilson Cycle. The present paper briefly summarizes the Rhenohercynian and reviews the relicts of the Rheic. The absence of a Rheic orogen is mainly due to bipolar subduction of the Rheic Ocean, which created two magmatic arcs and largely destroyed the passive margin prisms, thus depriving the collision zone of building material. Also, displacement of Variscan zones in England, France and Germany along a curvature of the dextral Bristol/Bray/Bohemia shear zone has effected their anticlockwise rotation. Younger, ENE-trending reverse faults have truncated the NE-trending structural boundaries and excised pre-Devonian, Rheic-related rocks west of the River Rhine, while the northern Rheic Arc and Cambrian–Silurian deposits of the Rheic Ocean have been preserved further east. Opening of the Rhenohercynian successor ocean to the Rheic put a brake on plate convergence and hindered formation of a large collisional belt. Scarce relicts of the southern Rheic Arc and rocks with Silurian deformation exist in the (largely eroded) upper plate of the Rhenohercynian collisional belt, mostly in the form of clasts and detrital zircons in Upper Devonian/lower Carboniferous flysch and in tectonic mélange at the base of the allochthon.

Abstract The Ordovician successions of France and neighbouring areas of Belgium and Germany are reviewed and correlated based on international chronostratigraphic and regional biostratigraphic charts. The same three megasequences related to the rift, drift and docking of Avalonia with Baltica can be tracked in Belgium and neighbouring areas (Brabant Massif and Ardenne inliers), western (Rhenish Massif) and northeastern Germany (Rügen). The remaining investigated areas were part of Gondwana in the Ordovician. The Armorican Massif shares with the Iberian Peninsula a Furongian–Early Ordovician gap (Toledanian or Norman gap), and a continuous Mid–Late Ordovician shelf sedimentation. The Occitan Domain (Montagne Noire and Mouthoumet massifs), eastern Pyrenees and northwestern Corsica share with southwestern Sardinia continuous shelf sedimentation in the Early Ordovician, and a Mid Ordovician ‘Sardic gap’. In the Ordovician, the Maures Massif probably belonged to the same Sardo-Occitan domain. The Vosges and Schwarzwald massifs display comparable, poorly preserved Ordovician successions, suggesting affinities with the Teplá-Barrandian and/or Moldanubian zones of Central Europe.