The marine Devonian stratigraphy of Great Britain

Exposed marine Devonian rocks of Great Britain are in South-West England where successions together span most of the Devonian Period. The Geological Conservation Review (GCR) sites of the volume are located in Cornwall and Devon, the latter providing the historic stratotype of the Devonian System. Site stratigraphies are linked to basins of three sub-provinces. Those represent different, albeit largely penecontemporaneous, tectonosedimentary regimes of the differing settings of the Rhenohercynian Zone. The sites and their selection criteria based on their international and national importance in understanding Devonian geological history are listed. A History of Research section provides a detailed review of work on the Devonian rocks of the province from 1839, when Sedgwick and Murchison proposed establishment of the system, to the present and the recent recognition of the relationships between its numerous successions and their dependence upon, extensional and contractional tectonic structures and processes. Other sections detail the Stratigraphical Framework of Devonian strata; Devonian Chronostratigraphy, tracing development and refinement of the Series’ and Stages of the system; and Biostratigraphy, in relation to the faunal groups of the province and their relevance to biozone establishment and environmental discrimination. The chapter concludes with an explanation of current understanding of the evolution of the plate settings of the province that determined the nature of the marine Devonian and its stratigraphy in South-West England.