In the preface to a book on thermodynamics it is customary to offer an excuse for writing yet another. Often the excuse is that no good text is available for this or that specialized subject. Although it is true that we are not completely satisfied with the texts available in the thermodynamics of geochemistry, one would have to be tremendously devoted to teaching for this to be sufficient reason for undertaking the prodigious amount of work involved in writing a book. In our case the reason is probably to be found rather in a long fascination with the subject, an accumulation over the years of topics that we felt were usually badly presented in books, and a desire to see what the final product would look like if we were to put all our convictions on paper. Still, it will have been a sterile effort if there are not at least some students who are helped a little over the hurdles that are encountered in trying to learn this most useful and most difficult of subjects <...>

“Agate” is defined by the American Geological Institute Glossary (1960) “as a kind of silica consisting mainly of chalcedony in variegated bands or other patterns commonly occupying vugs in volcanic and some other rocks.” Dana’s Textbook of Mineralogy (1898) defines agate as “a variegated chalcedony. The colors are either (a) banded; or (b) irregularly clouded; or (c) due to visible impurities as in moss agate, which has brown moss-like or dendritic forms, as of manganese oxide, distributed through the mass.

This book is dedicated to the scientific compositional analysis of ancient ceramics. It provides theoretical and practical guidelines for their study via the techniques of thin section petrography, instrumental geochemistry, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction.

With over 400 photomicrographs of prehistoric, historic and traditional ceramics from 50 countries worldwide, as well as raw material specimens, ethnographic and experimental samples, it can be used as a reference manual for the identification and interpretation of the compositional and microstructural phenomena that occur within ancient ceramics. The detailed accompanying text and logical chapter structure means that it may also serve as a course book for specialist training in ceramic compositional analysis, as well as for self-study. <...>

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. <...>