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The lava tubes at Undara became internationally recognised in the late 1980s, when 24 species of terrestrial cave-adapted invertebrates (troglobionts) were recorded from Bayliss Cave, making it one of the 20 richest known cave communities in the world at the time. Over the last decades, several of the Undara species have been taxonomically described and a great deal of research has been undertaken in other parts of Australia, which has revealed additional subterranean hotspots. It is therefore timely to update the list of Undara cave fauna, and to evaluate the Undara cave system in relation to other subterranean hotspots in Australia. The updated species list was compiled from the published literature and museum databases. Minimally, 78 species of arthropods have been recorded from 17 lava tube caves in the Undara Basalt. Sixteen species have been taxonomically described, 30 identified to genus and/or morpho-species, and 32 remain unidentified to species or genus level. Thirty troglobionts and one stygobiont species were recorded. Seven caves harboured obligate subterranean species, Bayliss Cave harboured the most obligate subterranean species: 23 troglobionts and one stygobiont. All these caves contained deep zone environments with high humidity, of which three also contained ‘bad air’ (CO2). The unique combination of geomorphic structure and environmental parameters (high humidity) and multiple energy sources (tree roots, bats and guano, organic material wash-in) are the main factors responsible for Bayliss Cave’s extraordinary local richness. Further research is needed to investigate CO2 as a factor influencing troglobiont richness and distribution in ‘bad air’ caves. Undara remains the richest subterranean hotspot in humid tropical Australia, however, significantly richer subterranean assemblages are found in arid and semi-arid calcrete aquifers, karst and iron-ore terrains, mostly in Western Australia.

Here, we describe the Permian–Lower Triassic sedimentary succession of South Pamir and the associated biota of conodonts, foraminifers and brachiopods. The studied succession comprises the Carboniferous-Lower Permian siliciclastic Uruzbulak and Tashkazyk formations (Bazar Dara Group), which are unconformably covered by upper Lower to Upper Permian units, deposited both in platform settings (Kurteke Formation), and on the slope and basin (Kochusu Formation, Shindy Formation, Kubergandy Formation, Gan Formation, and Takhtabulak Formation). These formations comprise bioclastic limestones, cherty limestones, shales, volcaniclastic rocks, basalts, sandstones and conglomerates, and are locally very rich in fossils (fusulinids, ammonoids, brachiopods, corals and conodonts). The Permian succession is then overlain by shallow water carbonates of the Induan to Anisian Karatash Group. Subsidence analysis and volcanics of the Permian and overlying Triassic successions constrains the timing of rifting of South Pamir from Gondwana in the Early Permian (=Cisuralian), and its docking to Central Pamir, the Eurasian margin and the interposed volcanic arcs at the end of the Triassic. The sedimentary successions of the Pamirs represent a key-point to refine the correlations between the Tethyan regional scale and the International Time Scale. The analyses of the fusulinids and conodonts of the Kubergandian and Murgabian stratotypes of SE Pamir suggest that: (1) the upper Bolorian and the lower part of the Kubergandian correlate to the upper Kungurian; (2) the upper Kubergandian and the lower Murgabian correlate to the Roadian; (3) the mid-upper Murgabian correlates to the Wordian; (4) possibly the uppermost Murgabian and the lower Midian correlate to the lower Capitanian. The Kubergandian is thus a defined regional stage, based on fusulinids, ammonoids and conodonts and can be correlated to the Kungurian and the Roadian; still problematic remains the Murgabian correlation which needs to be investigated and resolved in other Tethyan sections.

The impact of Holocene eruptive events from hot spots like Iceland may have had significant global implications; thus, dating and knowledge of past eruptions chronology is important. However, at high-latitude volcanic islands, the paucity of soils severely limits14C dating, while the poor K content of basalts strongly restricts the use of K/Ar and Ar/Ar methods. Even tephrochronology, based on14C age determinations, refers to layers that rarely lie directly above lava flows to be dated. We report on the paleomagnetic dating of 25 sites from the Reykjanes Peninsula and the Tungnaá lava sequence of Iceland. The gathered paleomagnetic directions were compared with the available reference paleosecular variation curves of the Earth magnetic field to obtain the possible emplacement age intervals. To test the method’s validity, we sampled the precisely dated Laki (1783–1784 AD) and Eldgjà (934–938 AD) lavas. The age windows obtained for these events encompass the true flow ages. For sites from the Reykjanes peninsula and the Tugnaá lava sequence, we derived multiple possible eruption events and ages. In the Reykjanes peninsula, we propose an older emplacement age (immediately following the 870 AD Iceland Settlement age) for Ogmundarhraun and Kapelluhraun lava fields. For pre-historical (older than the settlement age) Tugnaá eruptions, the method has a dating precision of 300–400 years which allows an increase of the detail in the chronostratigraphy and distribution of lavas in the Tugnaá sequence.