Misunderstanding exists about the origin of the Himalaya, Indo-Tibetan relationships and the extent and history of Gondwanaland. The Indus Suture Line is a relic of fracture to the mantle but for a period only represented by the faunas of the ‘exotic blocks’ of the Tibetan Himalaya, i.e. Permian—Late Jurassic. Tibet appears originally to have been part of a plate including India, but submerged while India remained continental. Associated with the fracture extending to the mantle represented now by the Indus Suture Line, shallower subparallel fractures developed within which the Gondwana sediments of the Himalaya were preserved. These, together with the salt at the base of the Tethyan marine sequence, facilitated intra-continental orogeny when, much later, India was affected by vigorous sea-floor spreading and plate movement in the NW Indian ocean after it had become attached to Asia.

The northern plate boundary was beyond Tibet, on the N side of the Tarim Basin Block, and along the Tien Shan. The Tien Shan present peculiar features, particularly very deep long intramontane depressions such as Issyk Kul in USSR and Turfan-Hami in China, and their stratigraphy shows persistent mobility. The Tarim Basin Block has moved sinistrally relative to Tibet and in Gondwanaland lay near northern Western Australia. The suggested extent of Gondwanaland explains the present lack of continental crust W of Western Australia, now in Tibet, and the intracontinental origin of the Himalaya is consistent with the absence of recent volcanism in an area of considerable seismicity. The association of Tibet with India in Gondwanaland destroys the effectiveness of arguments against continental drift based upon the extension of Indian stratigraphic sequences across the Himalaya. The hypothesis of an enlarged Gondwanaland is given support by recent Chinese discoveries of terrestrial vertebrate fossils of Gondwanic type near the Tien Shan.

Well-preserved brachiopod faunas collected from four Ordovician horizons range in age from Upper Llanvirn to Lower Caradoc. The generically restricted Upper Llanvirn and Lower Llandeilo assemblages are associated with diagnostic graptolites. In contrast the Upper Llandeilo and Lower Caradoc assemblages are more diverse and correlate well with faunas from the more precisely dated Chrustenice Substage in Bohemia. Two new brachiopod genera Apollonorthis and Cacemia are described.

The prevalence of low-variance assemblages, the frequency of the buffered association anthophyllite—cordierite—cummingtonite—plagioclase, and the ubiquity of aluminium-rich clots of diaspore incompatible with the ortho-amphibole of the rock suggest that the cordierite—anthophyllite rocks of the Land's End aureole are not the product of metasomatism, but resulted from the thermal metamorphism of pre-existing rock-compositions. The origin of many kyanite-, amphibole- and cordierite-rich bodies by pre-metamorphic alteration is of economic significance in regions where such curious silicate assemblages accompany sulphide deposits.

The Terceira Rift is a subsidiary zone of crustal generation in the Azores to the E of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The geology of the island of Terceira, which straddles the rift, is thought to give an indication of the nature of the volcanic activity along this zone of crustal separation. Terceira is composed of 4 large strato-volcanoes associated with trachytic or trachybasaltic activity which have since been intruded by basaltic magmas to form monogenic cinder cones and lava flows on the flanks of these large volcanoes. There is little direct evidence of eruptions along fissures although lines of cinder cones may indicate zones of weakness in the crust.

Alternative time-scales differing by 25% have been proposed for the climatic sequence revealed by deep-sea cores. Both scales are based on radiometric data. Recent evidence which is here summarized favours the time-scale which gives the smaller values for the ages of late Pleistocene events; it supports the estimate of 40 ka rather than 50 ka for the average length of the principal climatic cycle.

None of the time scales hitherto applied to the Greenland O18 curve is considered reliable. The logarithmic time scales were based on the false assumption of constant glacial dynamics. The latest time scale, based on a supposed constant 2400- years cycle, seems to be based on another false assumption of constant cycles. A chronology based on indirect dating therefore seems superior.

Satellite imagery provides additional support for the published geology of the eastern escarpment of the Ethiopian plateau. However, of greater interest is that inspection of the imagery reveals aspects of the regional geology that have gone unnoticed. The most obvious are used to extend fault lines discussed by Kazmin & Garland (1973).