The most dramatic new discoveries about the structure of the Earth in recent years have been those arising from the investigations of the ocean floors and the deep structure of the Earth (as it now is) by geophysical means. For a long time, however, a much larger bulk of information has been accumulating from the investigations of the continental masses; moreover, this information generally yields evidence of successively earlier stages in tectonic history. It is clearly essential in elaborating geotectonic hypotheses to take into account all the relevant evidence, and failure to do so may, in large measure, be attributed to the difficulty of searching through an enormous bulk of literature on continental tectonics and also to the subjective way in which much of it appears. It therefore seemed appropriate and timely to make available tectonic data aiming at a convenient and essentially objective presentation <...>

It is an old wisdom that metals are indispensable for life. Indeed, several of them, like sodium, potassium, and calcium, are easily discovered in living matter. However, the role of metals and their impact on life remained largely hidden until inorganic chemistry and coordination chemistry experienced a pronounced revival in the 1950s. The experimental and theoretical tools created in this period and their application to biochemical problems led to the development of the field or discipline now known as Bioinorganic Chemistry, Inorganic Biochemistry, or more recently also often addressed as Biological Inorganic Chemistry. By 1970 Bioinorganic Chemistry was established and further promoted by the book series Metal Ions in Biological Systems founded in 1973 (edited by H.S., who was soon joined by A.S.) and published by Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, for more than 30 years. After this company ceased to be a family endeavor and its acquisition by another company, we decided, after having edited 44 volumes of the MIBS series (the last two together with R.K.O.S.) to launch a new and broader minded series to cover today’s needs in the Life Sciences. Therefore, the Sigels’ new series is entitled <...>

The report that follows presents a first statement of the results of a study sponsored by the European Economic Community and the Department of Trade and Industry as communicated to a meeting of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy Midlands Section at which the President (Dr A. J. Robinson) and the Section Chairman (Professor N. A. Warner) were present. It was my privilege to attend and to make some concluding remarks; these form the basis of this preface. The Geological Survey, now in its 154th year, has as one of its principal objects the provision of geological maps based on surveying in maximum detail at a scale of 1:10 000. In areas where extractive or other engineering industry is important, the surveys have been revised more than once as new subsurface data became available.

The Fennoscandian Shield forms the north-westernmost part of the East European craton and constitutes large parts of Finland, NW Russia, Norway, and Sweden (Fig. 1). The oldest rocks yet found in the shield have been dated at 3.5 Ga (Huhma et al. 2004) and major orogenies took place in the Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic.