This new book by Marc Pansu and Jacques Gautheyrou provides a synopsis of the analytical procedures for the physicochemical analysis of soils. It is written to conform to analytical standards and quality control. It focuses on mineralogical, organic and inorganic analyses, but also describes physical methods when these are a precondition for analysis. It will help a range of different users to choose the most appropriate method for the type of material and the particular problems they have to face. The compiled work is the product of the experience gained by the authors in the laboratories of the Institute of Research for Development (IRD) in France and in tropical countries, and includes an extensive review of the literature. The reference section at the end of each chapter lists source data from pioneer studies right up to current works, such as, proposals for structural models of humic molecules, and itself represents a valuable source of information.

IRD soil scientists collected data on Mediterranean and tropical soils in the field from West and North Africa, Madagascar, Latin America, and South East Asia. Soil materials from these regions are often different from those found in temperate zones. As their analysis brought new problems to light, it was essential to develop powerful and specific physicochemical methods. Physicists, chemists and biologists joined forces with IRD soil scientists to contribute knowledge from their own disciplines thereby widening its scope considerably. This work is the fruit of these experiments as applied to complex systems, involving soils and the environment.

The two volumes on Stable Isotope Techniques are dedicated to my colleague and former tutor Simon M.F. Sheppard. He was the person who introduced me, during my study period in the Centre de Recherches P6trographiques et G6ochimiques, at Vandoeuvre-l~s-Nancy, France, to the wonderful world of stable isotopes applied to earth science, especially in the field of geochemistry and mineral deposits.

The investigation of stratiform/stratabound ore deposits associated with sediments and volcanics and ranging in age from Precambrian to Recent, has become a specialized branch within the wider scope of ore petrology. It is, by all means, not an entirely new field of endeavour and it has always had a place in economic geology, but an accelerated shift in both individualized and collective efforts in the study of the stratiform mineral accumulations has resulted in a large amount of dispersed data.

Coal is one of the relatively uncommon sedimentary rocks, but it is not rare because its estimated tonnage in the crust (of the order of 1013 tonnes; Fettweis, 1979) compares favourably with such rocks as carbonatites, nepheline syenites, phosphatic rocks or even chalk.

As an economic mineral commodity, coal lithosomes are perfectly and unequivocally stratiform and in the broad context consistent and genetically uniform, being always an organic sediment. In detail there are, of course, genetic variations, such as among the autochthonous and allochthonous coals, and among the coals of coalified plant (humites, humilitйs); microorganism and bituminous plant components (sapropelites); and pollen, resin, etc. (e.g. liptobiolites, resinites), derivations. The latter two derivations, however, are rare (Murchison and Westall, 1968). <...>