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Rugose corals from the Permian of Timor (Indonesia) and scleractinian corals from the Triassic of northern Italy are both exceptionally well preserved. The scleractinians, as shown previously by Montanaro Gallitelli, are preserved as the original aragonite. They have skeletal structures virtually identical to those in living corals, with some minor diagenetic alteration but without change in mineralogy. Microprobe scan lines show strontium as the common minor element in the Triassic skeletal aragonite.

• Read more about Original structure and composition of Permian rugose and Triassic scleractinian corals

Three basic types of Silurian gastropod faunas are recognized in the near-shore deposited Arisaig Group, Nova Scotia. A hard-bottom, shallow marine platform fauna is characterized by trochiform pleurotomariaceans. A soft-bottom, shallow marine platform fauna has dominant high-spired gastropods, and lacks the trochiform pleurotomariaceans. A more off shore, soft-bottom, open-lagoon fauna is typically composed of trochiform holopeids, although these give way to small bellerophontaceans in shallower water.

• Read more about Faunal succession and mode of life of Silurian gastropods in the Arisaig Group, Nova Scotia

The terms Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene were first used in 1833 in Charles Lyell's analysis of Cainozoic earth-history. Their original meaning and intention in Lyell's mind is here reconstructed, against the background of other contemporary research on the Tertiary strata. Lyell's terms were not originally intended to define contiguous periods of geological time: instead they defined relatively short isolated 'moments', randomly preserved from a far longer span of time.

• Read more about Charles Lyell's dream of a statistical palaeontology [Twentieth Annual Address delivered 16 March 1977]

In Britain the Middle-Upper Cambrian transition is fossiliferous only in the Nuneaton district. The Lejopyge laevigata Zone (Middle Cambrian) is recognized by a sparse fauna, chiefly of agnostid trilobites of Scandinavian character. The Agnostus pisiformis Zone (Upper Cambrian) contains Scandinavian agnostids and bradoriid Crustacea and also agnostids known from North America and Siberia, and rare polymerid trilobites akin to forms from Asia, Australia, and the U.S.A. Cristagnostus papilio gen. et sp. nov. and Modocia anglica sp. nov. are described.

• Read more about Fossils from the Middle–Upper Cambrian transition in the Nuneaton district

A new species of Meliolinites Selkirk, M. dilcherii, is reported from the Early Eocene of Texas, U.S.A. The specimens show various stages of perithecial development which are the same as those reported in extant meliolas. This is the oldest known occurrence of the genus.

• Read more about A new melioloid fungus from the Early Eocene of Texas

Early coloniality of Heritschioides sp. nov. from the Lower Permian (Upper Wolfcampian) of Texas has been studied in more than one thousand etched specimens. Ontogeny of the protocorallite differs from that of the only three known Devonian species. Septal insertion is initially of zaphrentoidal type. In early blastogeny the function of channels and septal swellings (new term) is of major importance. Division is thought to be an unimportant mode of reproduction and is associated with other modes, mainly lateral increase.

• Read more about Some aspects of coloniality in rugose corals

All reasonably complete specimens of the ornithischian suborder Ankylosauria can be allocated to one of two families, the Ankylosauridae and the Nodosauridae. which differ in many anatomical features. Evolution within these two families was very conservative, with little morphological diversity. There is no truly 'primitive' ankylosaur that is morphologically suitable as a common ancestor for both families. Scelidostntrus, sometimes suggested as an ancestral ankylosaur, has no features diagnostic of the Ankylosauria.

• Read more about The families of the ornithischian dinosaur order Ankylosauria

Two nearly complete and articulated parasuchian (phytosaur) skeletons, recently discovered from the Upper Triassic Maleri Formation of India, allow a detailed osteological description and restoration of the species Parasuchus hislopi Lydekker, 1885. The skull shows almost all of the archaic characters of parasuchians listed by Gregory (1962). The well-preserved braincase permits a reconstruction of the brain from a latex-rubber cast of the brain cavity. The tooth-replacement cycle of an individual tooth has been worked out from serial sections of a premaxilla.

• Read more about A primitive parasuchid (phytosaur) reptile from the Upper Triassic Maleri Formation of India

The jaw apparatus of extant cephalopods consists of articulated beak-like mandibles which are composed of chitin and powered by strong buccal muscles. Upper and lower jaws of Nautilus possess conspicuous calcite coverings; the upper jaw is characterized by a robust, arrow-shaped calcite element, the rhyncholite; the anterior region of the lower jaw possesses a delicately denticulated calcite element, the conchorhynch. The rhyncholite functions as an incisor operating against the lower cutting edge of the conchorhynch, producing a powerful shearing action.

• Read more about The jaw apparatus of Recent Nautilus and its palaeontological implications

Extensive collections from exposed and mechanically excavated sections permit the recognition of Middle Jurassic to Neocomian deposits in Andoya, northern Norway. Non-marine Bajocian-Bathonian is recognized by an assemblage of spores and pollen showing a close resemblance to that from the Middle Jurassic of Trondelag, Scania, and the Netherlands, but with some differences from Middle Jurassic assemblages from Britain.

• Read more about Jurassic–Cretaceous biostratigraphy of Norway, with comments on the British Rasenia cymodoce Zone