This volume summarizes the state of the art of Variscan geology from Iberia to the Bohemian Massif. The European Variscan belt consists of two orogens: the older, northern and the younger, southern. The northern Variscan realm was dominated by Late Devonian–Carboniferous rifting, subduction and collisional events as defined by sedimentary records, crustal growth, recycling of continental crust and large-scale deformations. In contrast, the southern European crust was reworked by major Late Carboniferous collision followed by Permian wrenching. The Late Carboniferous–Permian orogeny overprinted the previously accreted system in the north, but with much lower intensity, resulting in magmatic recycling and extensional tectonics. These two main orogenic cycles do not reflect episodic evolution of a single orogenic system but a complete change in orientation of stress field, thermal regime, degree of reworking and recycling of European crust, reflecting a major switch in plate configurations at the Early–Late Carboniferous boundary.

This book presents a series of review articles on nine important ancient orogens on Earth. Comparison of these mountain belts provides a wealth of information for the debate on whether there has been a change in mountain-building processes through the history of the Earth. As a precursor to these papers, the rheology of the Earth's lithosphere through time is reviewed. Theoretical analysis and insight into the behaviour of the lithosphere of other planets constrain mechanical considerations of the Earth's lithosphere. It is clear from these overviews that geodynamic concepts and modelling, and new techniques such as deep seismic profiling and geochronology are having a profound impact on orogenic studies.

The Himalayan mountain belt, which developed during the India–Asia collision starting about 55 Ma ago, is a dramatically active orogen and it is regarded as the classic collisional orogen. It is characterized by an impressively continuous 2500 km of tectonic units, thrusts and normal faults, as well as large volumes of high-grade metamorphic rocks and granites exposed at the surface. This constitutes an invaluable field laboratory, where amazing crustal sections can be observed directly in very deep gorges. It is possible to unravel the tectonic and metamorphic evolution of litho-units, to observe the mechanisms of exhumation of deep-seated rocks and the propagation of the deformation. Himalayan tectonics has been the target of many studies from numerous international researchers over the years. In the last 15 years there has been an explosion of data and theories from both geological and geophysical perspectives. This book presents the results of integrated multidisciplinary studies, including geology, petrology, magmatism, geochemistry, geochronology and geophysics, of the structures and processes affecting the continental lithosphere. These processes and their spatial and temporal evolution have major consequences on the geometry and kinematics of the India–Eurasia collision zone.

The web of geological sciences, Special papers 500 and 523, written in celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Geological Society of America.

This richly illustrated book offers a concise overview of the geology of Egypt in the context of the geology of the Arab Region and Northeast Africa. An introductory chapter on history of geological research in Egypt sheds much light on the stages before and after the establishment of Egyptian Geological Survey (the second oldest geological survey worldwide), Hume's book and Said's 1962, 1990 books. The book starts with the Precambrian geology of Egypt, in terms of lithostratigraphy and classifications, structural and tectonic framework, crustal evolution and metamorphic belts. A dedicated chapter discusses the Paleozoic-Mesozoic-Cenozoic tectonics and structural evolution of Egypt. A chapter highlights the Red Sea tectonics and the Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba Rifts. Subsequent chapters address the Phanerozoic geology from Paleozoic to Quaternary. The Egyptian Impact Crater(s) and Meteorites are dealt with in a separate chapter. The Earth resources in Egypt, including metallic and non-metallic ore deposits, hydrocarbon and water resources, are given much more attention throughout four chapters. The last chapter addresses the seismicity, seismotectonics and neotectonics of Egypt.