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The article critiques the comments made by Landing et al. on their paper, emphasizing that their interpretation of Cambrian strata in the Caledonian Highlands is flawed and lacks scientific support. It also discusses the issues with forced lithostratigraphic frameworks, the inadequate correlation methods used by Landing et al., and the inaccuracies in their data and interpretations regarding the Cambrian geological record.

New U-Pb zircon ages from volcanic, plutonic, and sedimentary units in the Avalonian Caledonia terrane of southern New Brunswick provide better timing constraints in this geologically complex area. Previous ca. 620 Ma ages from the Broad River Group are now corroborated by additional dates from felsic tuff in the Gordon Falls Formation and rhyolite in the former Fairfield (now East Branch Black River) Formation of 620 [+ or -] 5 Ma and 622 [+ or -] 1.9 Ma, respectively. Combined with ages ranging from ca. 625 Ma to 615 Ma from cross-cutting plutons, the data suggest that the minimum age of the Broad River Group is about 615 Ma. A quartz-feldspar porphyry dyke in mafic volcanic rocks of the previously undated Long Beach Formation yielded an igneous crystallization age of 685 [+ or -] 10 Ma, the oldest unit yet dated in the Caledonia terrane but similar in age to porphyry in the Stirling belt in the Avalonian Mira terrane of Nova Scotia. The age of the Coldbrook Group was constrained previously by U-Pb (zircon) ages of volcanic rocks between 560 and 550 Ma as well as by similar ages from comagmatic plutons. Five additional samples from both volcanic and plutonic units lie in the same range of 560-550 Ma, including errors, demonstrating that the Coldbrook Group and related plutons formed in less than 10 million years. Such a large volume of mainly felsic magma erupted and emplaced in a short time span suggests a 'supereruption/supervolcano' environment such as the late Cenozoic southwestern USA but not yet recognized at ca. 560-550 Ma elsewhere in Avalonia. Two units yielded Paleozoic ages: felsite of the Bloomsbury Mountain Formation with a zircon population at 427 [+ or -] 9 Ma, indicating a Silurian maximum emplacement age, and dacite of the Grassy Lake Formation with several zircon grains at 382.8 [+ or -] 8.3 Ma, indicating a maximum age of middle Devonian, the first rocks of this age to be identified in the Caledonia terrane. De nouveaux ages U - Pb sur zircon provenant d'unites volcaniques, plutoniques et sedimentaires dans le terrane avalonien Caledonie du sud du Nouveau-Brunswick fournissent de meilleures contraintes temporelles dans cette region geologiquement complexe. Les ages d'environ 620 Ma precedemment obtenus du Groupe de Broad River sont maintenant appuyes par des dates supplementaires provenant du tuf felsique dans la Formation de Gordon Falls et de la rhyolite dans l'ancienne Formation de Fairfield (maintenant East Branch Black River) de 620 [+ or -] 5 Ma et 622 [+ or -] 1,9 Ma, respectivement. Combine avec des ages allant de 625 Ma a 615 Ma a partir de plutons encaisses, les donnees suggerent que l'age minimum du Broad River Group est d'environ 615 Ma. Un dyke de porphyre de quartz-feldspath dans des roches volcaniques mafiques de la Formation de Long Beach non datee a donne un age de cristallisation ignee de 685 [+ or -] 10 Ma, la plus ancienne unite encore datee dans le terrane de Caledonie mais similaire en age au porphyre dans la ceinture de Stirling dans le terrane avalonien Mira de la Nouvelle-Ecosse. L'age du Groupe de Coldbrook etait auparavant limite par les ages U - Pb (zircon) des roches volcaniques entre 560 et 550 Ma, ainsi que par les ages similaires des plutons co-magmatiques. Cinq echantillons supplementaires provenant des unites volcaniques et plutoniques se situent dans la meme periode de 560 a 550 Ma, y compris les erreurs, demontrant que le Groupe de Coldbrook et les plutons associes se sont formes en moins de 10 millions d'annees. Un volume aussi important de magma principalement felsique ayant entre en eruption et mis en place dans un court laps de temps suggere un environnement de 'super-eruption / supervolcan' tel que le sud-ouest du Cenozoique superieur aux etats-Unis, mais pas encore reconnu entre 560-550 Ma ailleurs dans la zone d'Avalonia. Deux unites ont donne des ages paleozoiques: la felsite de la Formation de Bloomsbury Mountain avec une population de zircon a 427 [+ or -] 9 Ma, indiquant un age de mise en place maximal du Silurien, et la dacite de la Formation de Grassy Lake avec plusieurs grains de zircon a 382,8 [+ or -] 8,3 Ma, indiquant un age maximal du Devonien moyen, premieres roches de cet age identifiees dans le terrane de Caledonie. [Traduit par la redaction], INTRODUCTION The Caledonia terrane is a large area of mainly Neoproterozoic rocks that forms the Avalonian part of southern New Brunswick, extending from the Saint John area to the northeast [...]

Southern New Brunswick consists of a collage of fault-bounded belts of Late Neoproterozoic igneous and metamorphic rocks, early Paleozoic sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous units, and overlying Carboniferous and locally Triassic sedimentary rocks. The area also contains the boundary between Avalonia and Ganderia as interpreted in the northern Appalachian orogen. New detrital zircon ages reported here provide improved understanding of depositional ages and provenance of diverse Neoproterozoic to Carboniferous rocks in this complex area. Detrital zircon data from samples with Neoproterozoic maximum depositional ages indicate a dominantly Gondwanan provenance with strong influence from the Amazonian craton. However, quartzite from The Thoroughfare Formation on Grand Manan Island contains dominanly 2 Ga zircon grains, consistent with derivation from the West African craton. The age spectrum is similar to that of the Hutchins Island Quartzite in the Isleboro block in Penobscot Bay, Maine, strengthening the possibility of correlation between the two areas. Cambrian samples also show prominent peri-Gondwanan provenance with strong influence from F.diacaran to early Cambrian arc magmatism. The maximum depositional ages of these samples are consistent with previous interpretations of Cambrian ages based on fossil correlations and field data. A Carboniferous sample from Avalonia shows a significant contribution from Devonian magmatism as the youngest detrital component, although its depositional age based on field relationships is Carboniferous. The results exemplify the need to integrate multiple datasets in making interpretations from detrital zircon data. Le sud du Nouveau-Brunswick est constitue d'un collage de ceintures delimitees par des failles de roches ignees et metamorphiques du Neoproterozoique tardif, d'unites sedimentaires, metamorphiques et ignees du Paleozoique precoce, ainsi que de roches sedimentaires sus-jacentes du Carbonifere et, par endroits, du Trias. Le secteur comprend egalement la frontiere etablie entre Avalonia et Ganderia selon son interpretation a l'interieur de la partie septentrionale de l'orogene des Appalaches. De nouvelles datations de zircon detritique rapportees ici permettent une meilleure comprehension des ages sedimentaires et de la provenance des diverses roches neoproterozoiques a carboniferes dans ce secteur complexe. Les donnees relatives au zircon detritique obtenues des echantillons faisant etat d'ages sedimentaires remontant au maximum au Neoproterozoique signalent une provenance en predominance gondwanienne avec une forte influence du craton amazonien. Le quartzite de la Formation The Thoroughfare sur l'ile Grand Manan renferme toutefois predominament des grains de zircon de 2 Ga, ce qui correspond a une derivation du craton de l'Afrique occidentale. Le spectre de l'age est similaire a celui du quartzite de l'ile Hutchins a l'interieur du bloc Isleboro dans la baie Penobscot, au Maine, ce qui renforce la possibilite d'une correlation entre les deux secteurs. Les echantillons du Cambrien font eux aussi etat d'une provenance perigondwanienne prononcee, marquee d'une forte influence d'un magmatisme d'arc de l'Ediacarien au Cambrien precoce. Les ages sedimentaires maximaux de ces echantillons correspondent aux interpretations anterieures des datations du Cambrien basees sur des correlations de fossiles et des donnees d'echantillonnage sur le terrain. Un echantillon du Carbonifere provenant d'Avalonia revele une contribution prononcee du magmatisme devonien a titre d'element detritique le plus recent, mais son age sedimentaire le situe au Carbonifere d'apres les relations etablies sur le terrain. Les resultats illustrent la necessite d'une integration de plusieurs ensembles de donnees pour effectuer des interpretations a partir de donnees provenant de zircon detritique. [Traduit par la redaction], INTRODUCTION AND GEOLOGICAL SETTING Southern New Brunswick consists of a complex assemblage of three fault-bounded belts of mainly Neoproterozoic rocks with minor Paleozoic rocks termed (from southeast to northwest) Caledonia, [...]

The Almond Road Group in the northeastern New River belt comprises two formations: the basal Snider Mountain Formation contains orthoquartzite, feldspathic quartzite, and quartzite pebble conglomerate; the gradationally overlying Ketchum Brook Formation is composed of feldspathic sandstone, laminated dark siltstone and shale, overlain by mafic lithic tuffs and basaltic flows. The Almond Road Group overlies latest Ediacaran to earliest Cambrian (early Fortunian) pyroclastic, volcaniclastic, and epiclastic rocks of the Belleisle Bay Group. Based in part on this relationship, the Almond Road Group was thought to be Early Cambrian, although an upper age limit had never been determined. A U-Pb (zircon) age of 475 [+ or -] 2 Ma for the West Scotch Settlement porphyry, a small felsic hypabyssal intrusion emplaced into the Ketchum Brook Formation, demonstrates that the Almond Road Group is no younger than Early Ordovician (early Floian) age. Its age is further constrained by LA ICP-MS detrital zircon data from a basal quartzite in the Snider Mountain Formation. Results show a dominant peak in the Ediacaran (ca. 575 Ma), with the youngest coherent cluster of ages at ca. 530-520 Ma. Together these data support a Cambrian age for the quartz-rich Almond Road Group and its platformal relationship to Ganderia. Le groupe d'Almond Road, dans la ceinture nord-est de New River, comporte deux formations : la formation basale de Snider Mountain, qui contient de l'orthoquartzite, du quartzite feldspathique et un conglomérat de cailloux de quartz; la formation de Ketchum Brook, progressivement superposée et composée de grès feldspathique, de siltite feuilleté foncé et de schiste superposé de tuf lithique mafique et de coulées basaltiques. Le groupe d'Almond Road repose sur des roches pyroclastiques, volcanoclastiques et épiclastiques allant de l'Édiacarien tardif au Cambrien précoce (Fortunien précoce) du Groupe de Belleisle Bay. En raison en partie de cette relation, on estimait que le groupe d'Almond Road datait du Cambrien précoce, quoique la limite d'âge supérieure n'ait pas été déterminée. Une datation U-Pb (zircon) de 475 [+ or -] 2 Ma pour le porphyre de West Scotch Settlement, une petite intrusion felsique hypabyssale à position fixe de la formation de Ketchum Brook, montre que le groupe d'Almond Road ne date pas d'avant l'Ordovicien précoce (Floien précoce). Les données tirées du zircon détritique d'un échantillon de quartzite basal de la formation de Snider Mountain par spectromètre de masse à plasma inductif à ablation par laser restreignent l'âge davantage. Les résultats indiquent un sommet dominant pendant l'Édiacarien (environ 575 Ma), la plus jeune grappe d'âges cohérente étant d'environ 530 à 520 Ma. Mises ensemble, ces données appuient l'âge du Cambrien pour le groupe d'Almond Road riche en quartz, de même que sa relation avec les plates-formes du Gandérien. [Traduit par la redaction], INTRODUCTION AND REGIONAL GEOLOGICAL SETTING The New River belt (NRB) is the westernmost of three Proterozoic lithotectonic belts within the broader northeastern Appalachian orogen in southern New Brunswick (Fig. 1). [...]

The Belleisle Fault (Lubec Fault in southeast Maine) is one of several large strike-slip faults in the Appalachians of Maritime Canada. For much of its length, the Belleisle Fault is [...]

The Cambrian syn-rift strata preserved in western Avalonia provide a distinctive example of how unconformity-bounded sequences are diachronous throughout proximal to marginal rift branches. Terreneuvian--Miaolingian third-order sequences of the Caledonian Highlands, New Brunswick, Canada, reflect a complex interplay among syn-rift tectonic events, denudation pulses, and sea-level fluctuations. Unconformably overlying the early, rift-related volcanosedimentary Coldbrook Group (ca. 560-550 Ma), the Ratcliffe Brook, Glen Falls, Hanford Brook, and Forest Hills Formations can be subdivided into two transgressive systems tract (TST)--highstand systems tract (HST) sequences (each ~10 m.y.) and an incomplete TST sequence that are separated by stratigraphic gaps. They reflect uplift and tilting events affecting the basement, transgressive and drowning surfaces, and condensed sections. Arid to semi-arid climatic episodes are supported by the excellent preservation of mafic to felsic volcanic clasts in non-marine breccias and conglomerates, which are derived from the Ediacaran basement, and the local precipitation of marine gypsum through the evaporation of pore fluids. Early Miaolingian episodes of microbial/ shelly carbonate production preserved precipitates of coeval evaporite (gypsum pseudomorphs after drusy mosaics of calcite) and ikaite (glendonitic, star-shaped aggregates and crusts). Both minerals, traditionally considered to be indicators of contrasting climate conditions, potentially co-occur in temperate-water substrates recording high rates of microbial activity. The early rift phases preserved in the western Avalonian rift transect comprise stepwise uplift and unroofing of rift shoulders, which are related to diachronous, angular discordances and paraconformities bounded by syntectonic slope-apron deposits. Facies homogenization was attained during Miaolingian times as a result of generalized flooding, sealing of paleotopographies, and blanketing with monotonous offshore-dominant shales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The preschool years are a time of great advances in children's numerical thinking, most notably as they master verbal counting. The present research assessed the relation between analog magnitude representations and cardinal number knowledge in preschool-aged children to ask two questions: (1) Is there a relationship between acuity in the analog magnitude system and cardinality proficiency? (2) Can evidence of the analog magnitude system be found within mappings of number words children have not successfully mastered? To address the first question, Study 1 asked three- to five-year-old children to discriminate side-by-side dot arrays with varying differences in numerical ratio, as well as to complete an assessment of cardinality. Consistent with the analog magnitude system, children became less accurate at discriminating dot arrays as the ratio between the two numbers approached one. Further, contrary to prior work with preschoolers, a significant correlation was found between cardinal number knowledge and non-symbolic numerical discrimination. Study 2 aimed to look for evidence of the analog magnitude system in mappings to the words in preschoolers' verbal counting list. Based on a modified give-a-number task ([Wynn, 1990] and [Wynn, 1992]), three- to five-year-old children were asked to give quantities between 1 and 10 as many times as possible in order to assess analog magnitude variability within their developing cardinality understanding. In this task, even children who have not yet induced the cardinality principle showed signs of analog representations in their understanding of the verbal count list. Implications for the contribution of analog magnitude representations towards mastery of the verbal count list are discussed in light of the present work. (Contains 12 figures and 4 tables.)

The present research examined whether infants as young as 6 months of age would consider what objects a human agent could perceive when interpreting her actions on the objects. In two experiments, the infants took the agent's actions of repeatedly reaching for and grasping one of two possible objects as suggesting her preference for that object only when the agent could detect both objects, not when the agent's perceptual access to the second object was absent, either because a large screen hid the object from the agent (Experiment 1), or because the agent sat with her back toward the object (Experiment 2). These results suggest that young infants recognize the role of perception in constraining an agent's goal-actions.

To test the hypothesis that biological motion perception is developmentally integrated with important social cognitive abilities, 12-month-olds (N = 36) were shown a display of a human point-light figure turning to observe a target. Infants spontaneously and reliably followed the figure's "gaze" despite the absence of familiar and socially informative features such as a face or eyes. This suggests that biological motion displays are sufficient to convey rich psychological information such as attentional orientation and is the first evidence to show that biological motion perception and social cognitive abilities are functionally integrated early in the course of typical development. The question of whether common neural substrates for biological motion perception and analysis of gaze direction underlies the functional integration seen behaviorally is discussed.

By the end of the first year, infants are able to recognize both goal-directed and perceptually guided behavior in the actions of non-human agents, even faceless ones. How infants derive the relevant orientation of an unfamiliar agent in the absence of familiar markers such as eyes, ears, or face is unknown. The current studies tested the hypothesis that infants' calculate an agent's "front" from the geometry of its behavior in the spatial environment. In the first study, 14-15-month-old infants observed a symmetrical, faceless agent either interact contingently with a confederate or act randomly. It then turned toward one of two target objects. Infants were more likely to look in the direction the agent turned than the opposite direction, but only in the contingent condition. In the second study, the location of the confederate and target objects was varied, which in turn influenced which end of the agent infants interpreted as the front. Finally, implications for infants' early gaze-following behaviors with humans are tested and implications for theory of mind development more broadly are discussed.

The current study distinguishes between attributions of goal-directed perception (i.e. attention) and non-goal-directed perception to examine 9-month-olds' interpretation of others' head and eye turns. In a looking time task, 9-month-olds encoded the relationship between an actor's head and eye turns and a target object if the head and eye turns were embedded in a sequence of multiple, variable actions with equifinal outcomes, but not otherwise. This evidence supports the claim that infants of this age may attribute perception, at least goal-directed perception, to others and undermines arguments that gaze-following at this age consists only of uninterpreted reflexes. The evidence also suggests alternative interpretations of the typical errors infants make in standard gaze-following procedures. Implications for infants' understanding of perception and attention in both human and non-human agents are discussed.

Twelve-month-old infants attribute goals to both familiar, human agents and unfamiliar, non-human agents. They also attribute goal-directedness to both familiar actions and unfamiliar ones. Four conditions examined information 12-month-olds use to determine which actions of an unfamiliar agent are goal-directed. Infants who witnessed the agent interact contingently with a human confederate encoded the agent's actions as goal-directed; infants who saw a human confederate model an intentional stance toward the agent without the agent's participation, did not. Infants who witnessed the agent align itself with one of two potential targets before approaching that target encoded the approach as goal-directed; infants who did not observe the self-alignment did not encode the approach as goal-directed. A possible common underpinning of these two seemingly independent sources of information is discussed.

How do infants identify the psychological actors in their environments? Three groups of 12-month-old infants were tested for their willingness to encode a simple approach behavior as goal-directed as a function of whether it was performed by (1) a human hand, (2) a morphologically unfamiliar green object that interacted with a confederate and behaved intentionally, or (3) the same unfamiliar green object that behaved in a matched, but apparently random manner. Using a visual habituation technique, only infants in the first two conditions were found to encode the approach behavior as goal-directed. Thus infants appear able to attribute goals to non-human, even unfamiliar agents. These results imply that by the end of the first year of life infants have a broad notion of what counts as an agent that cannot easily be reduced to humans, objects that are perceptually similar to humans, or objects that display self-propulsion.

Three studies used interspecies adoption stories to examine children's understanding of the role of birth in determining animal properties and species identity. Found that most 4- to 7-year olds could reliably judge that babies would be of the same species as birth parents, but were unable to attribute properties of adoptive parents. (Author/KB)

Three Appalachian tectonostratigraphic terranes converge in the Beaver Harbour area of southern New Brunswick, overlain by two upper Paleozoic sedimentary sequences. The Ediacaran to Cambrian New River and Brookville terranes [...]

Three visual habituation studies using abstract animations tested the claim that infants' attachment behavior in the Strange Situation procedure corresponds to their expectations about caregiver-infant interactions. Three unique patterns of expectations were revealed. Securely attached infants expected infants to seek comfort from caregivers and expected caregivers to provide comfort. Insecure-resistant infants not only expected infants to seek comfort from caregivers but also expected caregivers to withhold comfort. Insecure-avoidant infants expected infants to avoid seeking comfort from caregivers and expected caregivers to withhold comfort. These data support Bowlby's (1958) original claims--that infants form internal working models of attachment that are expressed in infants' own behavior. Keywords: Internal working models; Attachment; Infant cognition; Individual differences DOI: 10.111l/j.1551-6709.2010.01112.x

ABSTRACT Detrital zircon ages were determined for conglomerate and sandstone samples from six fault-bounded belts in New Brunswick and coastal Maine. Formations sampled included the Martinon (Brookville belt), Flagg Cove [...]

ABSTRACT U-Pb (zircon) ages for eight samples from southern New Brunswick were determined during the early 1990's as part of a regional mapping and correlation program. Although most of the [...]

The Pocologan River and Long Reach areas are situated in the New River belt, which comprises the westernmost exposures of Neoproterozoic rocks in southern New Brunswick. Previous mapping in the [...]

A study was conducted to analyze the ability of adolescents and adults with Williams syndrome to acquire conceptual change concepts using an empirical approach. Materials on the development of folkbiology were used as probes for biological understanding. The probes were then categorized into two batteries according to the hypothesized distinction of general knowledge and folkbiological concepts. Results indicated that persons with Williams syndrome had a differential impairment in acquiring conceptual change concepts.