The development of laser ablation techniques using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry has enabled the routine and fast acquisition of in situ U–Pb and Pb–Pb isotope ratio data from single detrital grains or parts of grains. Detrital zircon dating is a technique that is increasingly applied to sedimentary provenance studies. However, sand routing information using zircon analysis alone may be obscured by repeated sedimentary reworking cycles and mineral fertility variations. These biases are illustrated by two clear case studies from the Triassic–Jurassic of the Barents Shelf where the use of U–Pb geochronology on apatite and rutile and Pb–Pb isotopic data from K-feldspar is highly beneficial for provenance interpretations. In the first case study, U–Pb apatite ages from the (Induan – Norian) Havert, Kobbe and Snadd formations indicate an evolving provenance and identify possible episodes of storage within foreland basins prior to delivery onto the Barents Shelf. In the second case study, U–Pb rutile and Pb isotopic analyses of K-feldspar from the Norian–Pliensbachian Realgrunnen Subgroup provide a clear distinction between north Norwegian Caledonides and Fennoscandian Shield sources and suggest that a similar approach may be used to test competing models for sand dispersal for this Subgroup in regions farther north than this study.

The Upper Cretaceous Kanguk Formation of the Sverdrup Basin, Canadian Arctic Islands, contains numerous diagenetically altered volcanic ash layers (bentonites). Eleven bentonites were sampled from an outcrop section on Ellesmere Island for U–Pb zircon secondary ion mass spectrometry dating and whole-rock geochemical analysis. Two distinct types of bentonite are identified from the geochemical data. Relatively thick (0.1 to 5 m) peralkaline rhyolitic to trachytic bentonites erupted in an intraplate tectonic setting. These occur throughout the upper Turonian to lower Campanian (c. 92–83 Ma) outcrop section and are likely associated with the alkaline phase of the High Arctic Large Igneous Province. Two thinner (<5 cm) subalkaline dacitic to rhyolitic bentonites of late Turonian to early Coniacian age (c. 90–88 Ma) are also identified. The geochemistry of these bentonites is consistent with derivation from volcanoes within an active continental margin tectonic setting. The lack of nearby potential sources of subalkaline magmatism, together with the thinner bed thickness of the subalkaline bentonites and the small size of zircon phenocrysts therein (typically 50–80 μm in length) are consistent with a more distal source area. The zircon U–Pb age and whole-rock geochemistry of these two subalkaline bentonites correlate with an interval of intense volcanism in the Okhotsk–Chukotka Volcanic Belt, Russia. It is proposed that during late Turonian to early Coniacian times intense volcanism within the Okhotsk–Chukotka Volcanic Belt resulted in widespread volcanic ash dispersal across Arctic Alaska and Canada, reaching as far east as the Sverdrup Basin, more than 3000 km away.

The Amlah terrane, NW Yemen, comprises a suite of calc-alkaline tonalitic to granodioritic gneisses bounded by mafic volcanic and probable ophiolites. Occupying a key location between the largely juvenile arc terranes of the Saudi Arabian Shield and their correlatives in NW Yemen to the west and continentally influenced terranes of central Yemen to the east, it allows evaluation of models for the final assembly of the Arabian Shield. A field, geochemical, isotopic and geochronological study was undertaken in order to constrain the evolution of the Amlah terrane and its tectonic setting. Calc-alkaline gneisses dated between c. 760 and 670 Ma have Nd- and Pb-isotopic signatures indicative of minor involvement of older continental crust in their petrogenesis. Syn- and post-tectonic intrusions dated between c. 635 and 605 Ma show that suturing of the Amlah terrane was complete by around 640 Ma. These data are used to infer that the Amlah terrane developed as an Andean-style marginal arc on an extended western margin of the Paleoproterozoic continental Abas terrane. The western margin of the Amlah terrane is interpreted as the continuation into Yemen of the Nabitah suture Zone, which separates eastern (oceanic) and western (continent-influenced) arc terranes in Saudi Arabia.

The importance of topography generated by Eocene Eurekan deformation as a sediment source for sandstones deposited on the western Barents Shelf margin is evaluated through a sediment provenance study conducted on wellbore materials retrieved from Spitsbergen and from the Vestbakken Volcanic Province and the Sørvestsnaget Basin in the southwest Barents Sea. A variety of complementary techniques record a provenance change across the Paleocene-Eocene boundary in wellbore BH 10-2008, which samples Paleogene strata of the Central Tertiary Basin in Spitsbergen. Sandstones containing K-feldspar with radiogenic Pb isotopic compositions, chrome spinel in the heavy mineral assemblage, and detrital zircons and rutiles with prominent Palaeoproterozoic and Late Palaeozoic—Early Mesozoic U-Pb age populations are up-section replaced by sandstone containing albitic plagioclase feldspar, metasedimentary schist rock fragments, a heavy mineral assemblage with abundant chloritoid, metamorphic apatite with low REE contents, metapelitic rutile with Silurian U-Pb ages and zircons with predominantly Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic U-Pb age populations. Our results clearly demonstrate the well-known regional change in source area from an exposed Barents Shelf terrain east of the Central Tertiary Basin during the Paleocene to the emerging Eurekan mountains west and north of the Central Tertiary Basin during the Eocene. Eocene sandstones deposited in the marginal basins of the southwestern Barents Shelf, which were sampled in wellbores 7316/5-1 and 7216/11-1S, contain elements of both the Eurekan and the eastern Barents Shelf provenance signatures. The mixing of the two sand types and delivery to the southwest margin of the Barents Shelf is consistent with a fill and spill model for the Central Teritary Basin, with transport of Eurekan-derived sediment east then south hundreds of kilometres across the Shelf.

Detrital zircon U–Pb and Lu–Hf data from the youngest (late Permian) sedimentary succession of the Falkland/Malvinas Islands are used to constrain the depositional age, provenance and palaeogeography, and to test the Natal Embayment model for the Falkland/Malvinas Islands microplate. The late Permian was a period of extensive magmatism and sediment recycling along the accretionary margin of West Gondwana. Deposition into retro-arc foreland basins was widespread across South Africa, Antarctica, South America and the Falklands Islands, forming thick successions of fluvial, deltaic and shallow marine units. Our analysis links the late Permian ( c . 260 Ma) Bay of Harbours Formation of the Falkland/Malvinas Islands with deltaic/fluvial volcaniclastic units from the Karoo Basin of South Africa, the Theron Mountains of East Antarctica and the sandstones of the Ellsworth Mountains and southern Antarctic Peninsula. These units all have a shared provenance from the Antarctic sector of the West Gondwana margin. Although the detrital zircon age profiles of the Falkland/Malvinas Islands sedimentary units overlap with those from the accretionary and volcanic complexes of Patagonia, the Lu–Hf isotope compositions are clearly distinct, indicating that there was no direct link between the late Permian successions of the Falkland/Malvinas Islands ( ε _Hf −3 to +3) to the volcano-sedimentary successions of southern South America ( ε _Hf less than −5).