The Variscan belt: correlations and plate dynamics
an increasing volume of high-quality information from metamorphic petrology and structural geology. It becomes obvious that the evolution of the European Variscan belt is diachronous in various senses. As an example, the main paroxysmal event, characterised by the HT-LP metamorphism and associated granitic magmatism, culminated at c. 340 Ma in the north-east and c. 320–300 Ma to the southwest. A new geodynamic scenario emerges that takes into account the important Ordovician extensional event, and the mid-Ordovician Sardic unconformity in various regions of the belt as well as more precise data of igneous events coming from northern Gondwana and southern Laurussia. Altogether, new results show that the progress in Variscan orogenic research is converging towards a new paradigm involving more precise plate configurations and dynamics in Palaeozoic times. This volume of the International Journal of Earth Sciences is an evidence of this tendency and presents several studies documenting the fundamental importance of detailed geochronology, coupled with solid geological field data, for unravelling the complex geological history of the Variscan belt. Racek et al. use a novel approach to decipher the polyphase Variscan kinematics on the eastern margin of the Bohemian massif via kinematic modelling coupled with detailed Ar/Ar geochronology. They demonstrate the frontal character of the thrusting of the Moldanubian hot nappe over the easterly Brunia basement. The hornblende Ar/Ar data, yielding two peaks at c. 342 and 332 Ma, document the associated progressive erosion of the nappe during the thrusting and are correlated with published Ar/Ar ages on detrital muscovite from the adjacent foreland basement. Laurent et al. propose an impressive data set of geochronological and geochemical data on various types of both granitoid and mafic rocks from the eastern French Massif Central. They document that all these magmatic rocks The new series of international conferences focused on the Palaeozoic evolution of the European lithosphere started in 2007 in Orléans, followed by the successful meeting in 2012 in Sassari, and the last one in 2015 in Rennes. The first conference was dedicated to mechanical aspects of the Variscan orogeny and resulted in a highly successful Special Issue of Comptes Rendus Geoscience published in 2009. The second, Sassari conference was devoted to the extent and time scales of formation of the European crust and resulted in a number of excellent papers published in the form of a Special Publication of the Geological Society of London (# 405, 2014). The last, Rennes conference, was dedicated to the correlations and plate dynamics across the European Variscan belt and resulted in the current special issue of the International Journal of Earth Sciences. The papers published in this volume clearly show that the Variscan orogenic research evolves to become more modern and quantitative based in particular on detailed stateof-the-art geochronology and geochemistry, and the advent of numerical modelling. The community is critically using large and new data sets of high-resolution geochronological data combined with modern geochemistry and