Abstract The Girvan–Ballantrae district is a classic Ordovician area that has played a key role in our understanding of the processes taking place along, or close to a destructive plate margin. The Ordovician rocks divide conveniently into two major associations: an older, northward-obducted ophiolite with associated volcanogenic and clastic sediments, and a younger, thick, transgressive cover sequence currently believed to represent a proximal fore-arc regime. Modern fore-arc sequences are commonly associated with fragments of obducted ocean crust, to which the Ballantrae Complex may be compared

Abstract The Lower Palaeozoic accretionary thrust belt forming the Southern Uplands terrane lies to the northwest of the Iapetus Suture and to the southeast of the Southern Upland Fault ( Fig. 6.1 ). The former structure marks the line of closure of the Iapetus Ocean and of collision between the continental blocks of Laurentia and Avalonia; it underlies the Solway Firth and approximates to the line of the Anglo-Scottish border. The latter structure separates the Southern Uplands terrane from the mainly Upper Palaeozoic rocks of the Midland Valley terrane and in particular the Ballantrae Complex. The following sections have been contributed by B. J. Bluck (Ballantrae), P. Stone (Southern Uplands stratigraphy, and provenance) and G. J. H. Oliver (Southern Uplands structure, metamorphism, and geodynamics).