ABSTRACT A 3 ton (2.7 metric tonnes [t]), granitoid lonestone with Appalachian provenance was found in situ in offshore Devonian black shale in northeastern Kentucky, United States, and is denoted herein as the Robinson boulder, or lonestone, after its discoverer, Michael J. Robinson. This large boulder appears to have been displaced nearly 500 km from its source on the opposite margin of the Acadian/Neoacadian Appalachian foreland basin. While previous identifications of possible lonestones have been attributed to Pleistocene glacial events, scrutiny of this lonestone’s origin suggests that the boulder, which was embedded in the Upper Devonian Cleveland Shale Member of the Ohio Shale in northeastern Kentucky, is most likely a Devonian ice-rafted glacial dropstone. Notably, palynologic correlation with reported glacial diamictites elsewhere in the basin indicates such a source. Together, the dropstone and diamictites, separated by ~500 km, provide evidence for alpine glaciation in the ancient Acadian/Neoacadian orogen and for tidewater glaciers in the adjacent, eastern margin of the foreland basin. The latest Devonian marine transgression and Neoacadian foreland subsidence are interpreted to have been associated with tidewater glacial connections to the open sea. Importantly, the existence of this dropstone and its likely glacial precursor events require new considerations about contemporary black-shale sedimentation and the influence of tectonics on the delivery of glacial sediments to foreland basins.

Abstract The Långmarkberg Formation (Fm). rests on either the Neoproterozoic rift-related Risbäck Group or Palaeoproterozoic basement in central Scandinavia. It is always succeeded in stratigraphy by the marine Gärdsjön Fm. The Långmarkberg Fm. is a thin, generally less than 50-m-thick, discontinuous, but persistent unit, primarily in the Lower Allochthon; subordinately also in the Autochthon, and Middle Allochthon of the central Scandinavian Caledonides. The formation is composed of a lower diamictite and an upper laminated, lonestone-bearing mudstone. Criteria supporting the glaciogenic origin of the formation are (i) a large regional extension of the formation (>5000 km 2 ) and (ii) its fixed position in the regional stratigraphy, (iii) the ‘tillite-like’ appearance of the lower part of the formation, (iv) the lonestone-bearing mudstone in the upper part, (v) the presence of striated clasts and (vi) striated pavement. It is interpreted as having formed during one single glacial–deglacial cycle. Information on chemostratigraphy and realistic geochronology from this region is missing. The Långmarkberg Fm. has commonly been correlated with the Moelv Fm. in southern Norway and the Mortensnes Fm. in northernmost Norway. The Lower Allochthon in this region also contains an older, potentially glacially influenced diamictite unit at the base of the Risbäck Group, which is also briefly discussed.