ABSTRACT The Minjur Formation crops out along the eastern rim of the Arabian shield and consists of alternating sandstone and shales with minor carbonates. Informally subdivided into lower and upper units, the Minjur Formation records depositional environments ranging from alluvial to marginal marine with tidally influenced channels. The stacking patterns reflect delta or shoreline progradation and retrogradation, recording an overall coarsening upward character. In outcrop, the Minjur Formation was dated as Norian by conodonts near the base. In the subsurface, palynology has established a fourfold biostratigraphic subdivision extending from latest Carnian–early Norian to latest Rhaetian–Pliensbachian (Triassic–Early Jurassic). This study improves the understanding of Minjur stratigraphy and presents a depositional model based on surface–subsurface correlation. Subsequent to a period of subaerial exposure in the west, transgression in the early middle Norian was marked by marginal marine environments, with peak marine influence in the mid–late Norian and corresponding to the maximum flooding interval Tr80. This was followed by development of a gently inclined alluvial or coastal plain. An intra-Rhaetian hiatus separates the Lower Minjur Formation from the Upper Minjur Formation (base of TSS AP7[?]), and a variety of depositional environments are represented, including alluvial fans proximally, grading to fluvial to coastal plain and shallow marine environments distally.

Abstract The inversion of a sedimentary basin could be associated with compressional reactivation of basin-forming normal faults, upwards movement of the basement blocks and partial or complete erosion of its sedimentary infill. Basin inversion might be also related to whole-basin uplift that is not linked to the reactivation of basement faults, and results in the development of regional stratigraphic gaps and unconformities. Both types of basin inversion have been documented in SE Poland using seismic data. Regional NW–SE seismic profiles illustrate earliest Late Jurassic (earliest Oxfordian) and earliest Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) regional unconformities related to regional basin-scale uplifts in the SE segment of the Polish Basin. Late Cretaceous (Turonian?–Maastrichtian) progressive uplift of the Mid-Polish Swell has been documented along the NE border zone of this regional anticlinal structure. The Upper Cretaceous inversion-related sedimentary succession is characterized by an overall progradational character directed from the SW towards the NE. Buried contourite drifts that were detected within the Upper Cretaceous succession using seismic data indicate the existence of contour currents encircling inversion-related intrabasinal morphological barriers. A new tectonic scenario of the Mesozoic evolution of SE Poland would have a significant impact on the modelling of tectonic subsidence and the history of petroleum systems.

Abstract: The most extensive Permian tetrapod (amphibian and reptile) fossil records from the western USA (New Mexico to Texas) and South Africa have been used to define 11 land vertebrate faunachrons (LVFs). These are, in ascending order, the Coyotean, Seymouran, Mitchellcreekian, Redtankian, Littlecrotonian, Kapteinskraalian, Gamkan, Hoedemakeran, Steilkransian, Platbergian and Lootsbergian. These faunachrons provide a biochronological framework with which to assign ages to, and correlate, Permian tetrapod fossil assemblages. Intercalated marine strata, radioisotopic ages and magnetostratigraphy were used to correlate the Permian LVFs to the standard global chronostratigraphic scale with varying degrees of precision. Such correlations identified the following significant events in Permian tetrapod evolution: a Coyotean chronofaunal event (end Coyotean); Redtankian events (Mitchellcreekian–Littlecrotonian); Olson’s gap (late Littlecrotonian); a therapsid event (Kapteinskraalian); a dinocephalian extinction event (end Gamkan); and a latest Permian extinction event (Platbergian–Lootsbergian boundary). Problems of incompleteness, endemism and taxonomy, and the relative lack of non-biochronological age control continue to hinder the refinement and correlation of a Permian timescale based on tetrapod biochronology. Nevertheless, the global Permian timescale based on tetrapod biochronology is a robust tool for both global and regional age assignment and correlation. Advances in Permian tetrapod biochronology will come from new fossil discoveries, more detailed biostratigraphy and additional alpha taxonomic studies based on sound evolutionary taxonomic principles.

Abstract The Pontides forming the southern continental margin of the Black Sea consist of the Strandja, İstanbul and Sakarya zones. The Zonguldak-Ulus Basin, located in the NE part of the İstanbul Zone, has traditionally been viewed as opening during the Barremian and deepening until the Albian under the control of normal faults. New outcrop data indicate that the southern and eastern parts of this basin facing towards the Intra-Pontide Ocean in the south were already open during the Berriasian or earlier. Uplift and erosion of the Zonguldak-Ulus Basin during the Cenomanian is attributed to collision of the İstanbul and the Sakarya zones along the Intra-Pontide Suture. The Sinop Basin in the Sakarya Zone opened during Hauterivian–Barremian time. Sedimentation in this basin continued in a deepening environment until the development of the Pontide Magmatic Belt during the Turonian. The contact between the İstanbul and the Sakarya zones is represented by a shear zone that consists of siliciclastic distal turbidites, debris-flow deposits and radiolarian cherts imbricated with Middle Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous magmatic arc fragments. This shear zone is interpreted as being the eastern continuation of the Intra-Pontide Suture, separating the İstanbul and the Sakarya zones. The Western Black Sea Basin to the north of the Pontides possibly opened in two stages. In the first stage, coeval with the opening of the Zonguldak-Ulus Basin, the rifting was a wide-rift style and caused thinning of the continental crust. During the Turonian–Santonian, the Pontide Magmatic Belt started to develop as an extensional arc, and caused break-up of the already thinned crust and the start of oceanic spreading in the Western Black Sea Basin.

Abstract The Ediacaran to Cambrian transition of the Digermul Peninsula consists of an ichnologically rich, thick, conformable, shallow marine siliciclastic succession that crosses the Neoproterozoic–Cambrian boundary. The Tanafjord section has been independently dated by published palynological and new body fossil discoveries. As is also observed at the current Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the Ediacaran–Cambrian boundary at Fortune Head in Newfoundland, Canada, there is a marked increase in burrow size and inferred behavioural diversity around the inferred boundary level at a surface without a significant hiatus. The diversity of this trace fossil assemblage presents an opportunity to compare the ichnological first appearance datums between the GSSP and another sedimentologically similar, but palaeogeographically remote, succession. We found that the first appearance datums of taxa in Finnmark broadly support the definition and stratigraphic extents of the Harlaniella podolica , Treptichnus pedum, Rusophycus avalonensis and Cruziana tenella zones. Our work shows that there is a marked increase in ichnodiversity in the lowermost Fortunian, mostly in the form of shallow tier traces. The main post-Fortunian ichnological innovation is the evolution of bulk sediment deposit feeding that is first evidenced by spreiten burrows at around the base of Cambrian Stage 2 in both the GSSP and in the Tanafjord section. Supplementary material: Additional images of trace fossils from the studied section are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3462561 Gold Open Access: This article is published under the terms of the CC-BY 3.0 license .