The engineering geologist should be able to identify soil and rocks by visual examination and to interpret the geological history and structure of a site as set out in Chapter 4. He needs to be able to describe these rocks and soils both geologically and, in an unambiguous way, in terms of their relative strengths. He also must have knowledge of geomorphological processes, be able to interpret terrain features and hydrogeological conditions. Principles of hydrogeology are dealt with in Chapter 5.

This book is aimed at postgraduates, undergraduates and workers in industry who require an introduction to geostatistics. It is based on seven years of courses to undergraduates, M.Sc. students and short courses to industry, and reflects the problems which have been encountered in presenting this material to mining engineers and geologists over a wide age range, and with an equally wide range of numerical ability. The book would provide the foundation of a course of about 20 to 30 hours, or of a five-day short course.

Milestones mark great events: walking on the moon, analyzing rocks on Mars, flying a self-propelled, heavier-than-air machine, using a Bunsen burner for flame atomic spectrometry, and perhaps employing an atmospheric pressure plasma mass spectrometry as an ion source for solution mass spectrometry. Yes, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) ranks among the milestone inventions of spectrochemical analysis during the 20th century.

The Australasian Code for reporting of Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (JORC Code) was updated in 1999 (JORC 1999). This paper has been written as an update of Snowden (1996 and 1997) to recognise the large amount of experience with the use of the JORC Code gained by industry over the last four years, and describes the latest developments in technology and toolkits for risk classification.