Abstract Sixty-three maps illustrate geodynamic evolution and development of palaeoenvironments and palaeolithofacies of the Circum-Arctic region during Phanerozoic times. After the break-up of Rodinia and Pannotia in the Early Palaeozoic, the major Arctic plates Baltica, Siberia and Laurentia drifted from their original position around the South Pole towards the Supercontinent Pangea, which existed in the equatorial position during Late Palaeozoic and Early Mesozoic times. During the Mesozoic and Cenozoic plates gathered around newly formed Arctic Ocean. Large continental masses were assembled from major plates and numerous small plates and terranes on the northern hemisphere and around the North Pole. All the continents were by now connected. Carbonates were abundant in Siberia and Laurentia during Palaeozoic times. Clastic sedimentation prevailed during Mesozoic and Cenozoic times. The distribution of lithofacies shows climatic change associated with continental assembly and disassembly as well as with the steady northward drift of the continents.

Abstract The Lysogory Unit, the Malopolska Massif and the Upper Silesian Massif in southern Poland are parts of a mosaic of contrasting crustal fragments separating the old Precambrian crust of the East European Platform (EEP) from the Phanerozoic mobile belts of western Europe. The geological histories of these blocks are markedly different. They have been regarded as integral parts of the palaeocontinent of Baltica (that is, the EEP), mostly because of presence of fossils typical for the Baltic realm, although geophysical and geological data and some faunal elements rather suggest linkages to the Peri-Gondwana plates. To provide additional constraints for the plate tectonic affinity of these blocks detrital muscovite grains extracted from Cambrian and Devonian clastic rocks were dated by the K–Ar method. The K–Ar cooling ages show a very complex provenance pattern for clastic material in Cambrian time. Combined with the biogeographical constraints, the new provenance data apparently show that the blocks of Lysogory, Malopolska, and Upper Silesia are in fact crustal fragments derived from the Gondwana margin, not displaced parts of the East European Craton. Thus, the Teisseyre–Tornquist Line (that is, the edge of the EEP) is the Baltica–Gondwana suture in central Europe. The combined data reveal an accretionary scenario in which the Malopolska Block was the first Gondwana-derived microplate that accreted to the margin of Baltica.

Abstract The term ‘Devonian’ was first used in the 1830s to describe a succession of rocks in Devonshire, a large county in SW England. The Devonian period is an interval of about 57 Ma in the middle part of the Palaeozoic with remarkable geological variety. It was influenced by active plate movements producing a wide range of environments and facies. The geosphere and biosphere were undergoing extraordinary changes during this period which can claim a remarkable number of biotic ‘firsts’, including the first appearance of vascular plants, ammonoids, insects and amphibians. A major radiation of fish took place and the Devonian has therefore been called ‘the age of fish’. The development of the earliest land floras, forests and soils on land areas changed the biosphere by transforming the terrestrial environment and linking it more closely with the aquatic realm. This influenced the evolution of tetrapods and their colonization of the land. The global climate switched from the hot greenhouse phase of the earlier Palaeozoic to the cold icehouse phase of the later Palaeozoic. This change was associated with one of the most important extinction phases of the Earth's history (the late-Frasnian biodiversity crisis). The greenhouse climate favoured the development of reef ecosystems dominated by rugose corals and stromatoporoids. They reached their acme in the Middle Devonian and disappeared in the late Frasnian, probably due to the global expansion of black, anoxic sediments on the shelves. Recent data suggest that the Frasnian crisis was triggered in large part by pulses of global

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).