A tetrapod trackway has been discovered in Devonian sedimentary rocks of SW Ireland. It is the first discovery of its kind in Europe. Details of the footprints are not preserved, probably because of strong Variscan pressure solution cleavage. However, after removing the effect of Variscan deformation, the large number of footprints (more than 150) makes it possible to calculate the original dimensions of the footprint pattern: stride (approximately 34 cm) and pace (approximately 35 cm). These values are higher than those for other traces of comparable age. The total length of the tetrapod is estimated to be 1 m. Lithostratigraphical and biostratigraphical arguments indicate an age of Mid- to Late Devonian.

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The first geochronological data from the Munster Basin (SW Ireland) contradict the accepted biostratigraphical maximum age (late Givetian-early Frasnian) of the oldest alluvium in the basin depocentre. Magmatic zircons from the Enagh Tuff Bed, a sub-plinian air-fall tuff within fluviatile Old Red Sandstone of NW Iveragh, give a Pb/Pb isotope age of 384.9 0.7 Ma. This confirms Middle Devonian (probably Eifelian) sedimentation and allows possible Early Devonian basin initiation. Associated second-cycle gravels suggest a pre-385 Ma minimum age for the Caherbla Group of the Dingle Basin. Correlation with alluvium containing tetrapod trackways indicates a pre-385 Ma age for the trace maker.

Newly acquired U-Pb magmatic zircon dates from silicic tufts within the Old Red Sandstone (ORS) magnafacies of the Munster Basin (SW Ireland) are intercalibrated with newly discovered (late Givetian) and reappraised (mid-Frasnian) miospore assemblages to provide the first biostratigraphically constrained numerical ages in the Irish Devonian succession. The weighted mean 2~176 isotopic age determined for the Keel Tuff Bed (385.0 + 2.9 Ma) is indistinguishable from that of the previously investigated Enagh Tuff Bed (384.9 + 0.7 Ma). In conjunction with very similar rare earth element (REE) signatures, this confirms their correlation, placing a minimum age of 384.9 + 0.4 Ma on the newly discovered Reenagaveen microflora, which is assigned to the late Givetian TCo Oppel zone. The equivalence of the Keel and Enagh Tufts constrains a vertebrate fauna containing Bothriolepis and the Valentia Island tetrapod ichnofauna to pre-date this event. Isotopic dating of thickly bedded subaerial tufts from the Lough Guitane Volcanic Complex, a major accumulation of rhyolites and silicic volcaniclastic rocks, reveals ages of 384.5 +_ 1.0 Ma (Killeen Volcanic Centre), indistinguishable from the Keel-Enagh Tuff Bed, and 378.5-t-0.2 Ma from the Horses Glen Volcanic Centre, previously considered to be the oldest of the complex. The Horses Glen Centre post-dates the Moll's Gap Quarry microflora, the only current biostratigraphical control on the age of the early ORS in the east of the basin depocentre, thus indicating a minimum age for the (mid-Frasnian) IV Oppel zone, the revised biostratigraphic age of this assemblage. These controls on the early ORS (1) suggest that Munster Basin initiation occurred before late Givetian time and (2) give time-averaged (compacted) accumulation rates of c. 0.17-0.25 and 0.18 mm a -1 for eastern and western Iveragh, respectively. The minimum basin duration time was c. 23 Ma to the end of the Devonian period. The implications of these data for the depocentre stratigraphy, volcanic events, proposed ORS cyclicities and the geohistory of the Munster Basin are examined.

Cenomanian to mid-Campanian rudist lithosomes, exposed along a transect across the Maiella carbonate platform margin (central Apennines, Italy), are described in terms of faunal and matrix composition, geometry, and facies association. On the external platform, the lithosomes reveal a complex geometry and a comparatively high faunal diversity, whereas lithosomes of the inner platform are generally thinner and show a simple, sheet-like geometry. Based on the abundance of lithosomes and of the associated rudist-derived calcarenites, we propose that lithosome formation and, hence, sediment production preferentially occurred on the outermost platform, although the preservation potential of bioconstructions was low in these high-energy environments. Reworking of rudists led to sediment export both towards more internal areas as well as towards the adjacent basin. In contrast, on the inner platform, rudist lithosome formation was restricted by the lack of an adequate substrate and by higher sedimentation rates.