In the early 1960s, the emergence of the theory of plate tectonics started a revolution in the earth sciences. Since then, scientists have verified and refined this theory, and now have a much better understanding of how our planet has been shaped by plate-tectonic processes. We now know that, directly or indirectly, plate tectonics influences nearly all geologic processes, past and present. Indeed, the notion that the entire Earth's surface is continually shifting has profoundly changed the way we view our world.

This volume arises from papers and posters presented at the International Conference on Fault-Related Folding in Foreland Basins held in Beijing in 2005 and organized by Vice President Chengzhao Jia of the Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development (RIPED) of PetroChina and Professor John Suppe of Princeton University and the Tarim Oilfield Company of PetroChina, and researchers from Nanjing and Zhejiang Universities in China.

The process sedimentology of tills is crucial to the understanding of the glacier ice–bed interface as a complex depositional, erosional and shear boundary layer. Consequently, it also plays a central role in deciphering the genesis of enigmatic subglacial bedforms such as drumlins, flutings and ribbed terrain. Yet, unlike the study of other boundary layers such as those that operate at the bed of fluvial, aeolian and deep water systems, our knowledge of subglacial process–formrelationships is relatively impoverished, largely due to the inaccessibility of glacier and ice sheet beds.

The Puutsaari intrusion is a potassium-rich magmatic complex in the eastern part of the Svecofennian domain close to the Archaean border. The intrusion is generally undeformed in contrast to 1880-1875 Ma-old country rock tonalitic migmatites and diatectites. The main rock types are: (1) mafic rocks of a gabbro-norite-diorite-quartz monzodiorite series; (2) quartz diorite-tonalite-granodiorite; and (3) coarse-grained microcline granite. The three rock-types intruded coevally forming a peculiar three-component mingling system. The mafic rocks, enriched in K, P, Ba, Sr and LREE, have marked shoshonitic affinities (K2O = 1.97-5.40, K2O/Na2O = 0.6-2.37). On a regional scale they demonstrate transitional geochemistry between less enriched syn-orogenic 1880 Ma-old gabbro-tonalite complexes and strongly enriched 1800 Ma post-collisional shoshonitic intrusions. The microcline granite as well as the tonalite-granodiorite rocks are geochemically similar to crustal anatectic granitoids of the NW Ladoga Lake area. The three rock groups do not form a single trend on Harker-type diagrams and are unlikely to be related by fractional crystallisation or mixing. Zircons from the Puutsaari microcline granite and from the mafic rock series have been dated by ion-microprobe (NORDSIM) at 1868.2 9/ 5.9 and 18699/7.7 Ma, respectively. Most zircons recovered from a granite sample had zoned or homogeneous cores and unzoned fractured rims. No statistically significant variation of zircon core and rim ages from the granite was established in the course of this study. Zircons from the mafic rock are unzoned. It is suggested that the mafic rocks at Puutsaari were derived from an enriched mantle shortly after the main Svecofennian collisional event and the roughly 1.88 Ga regional metamorphic culmination. The emplacement of the mafic melt caused anatectic melting of various crustal protoliths and produced coeval granitic and tonalitic compositions.