Sedimentary structures arise in immediate or close association with the transport of sedimentary materials. Some form where erosion predominates, others as net deposition prevails, and yet further kinds in the brief interval of time between sediment deposition and significant lithification. Many sedimentary structures are ordered features visible on sedimentation (bedding) surfaces, whereas others, often related to surface forms, are expressed as compositional and/or textural patterns (stratification) within Sedimentary deposits. Sedimentary structures can be created by chemical and biological as well as by physical agencies, but this book is about those structures wholly or predominantly shaped by physical mechanisms. The latter are much the most important and have continued to attract attention since the earliest days of the earth sciences in their modern form. <...>

The Red Sea-Gulf of Aden is an active maritime rift system which is unique in the world. Interest in rifts is considerable because they are vital in terms of understanding the fundamental mechanisms of plate movements and their related seismicity, and because the sedimentary basins which result can be important in terms of hydrocarbon and metalliferous potential. Furthermore, the Red Sea-Gulf of Aden rift system covers about 200 of latitude and therefore is also a favourable site for the study of past climatic changes through a particularly rich sedimentary record.

Sedimentation of palynomorphs and palynodebris: an introduction

The sorting of spores and pollen by water: experimental and field evidence

Transport and deposition of pollen in an estuary: signature of the landscape

Pollen preservation in alkaline soils of the American Southwest 

Wind and water transport and sedimentation of miospores along two rivers subject to major floods and entering the Mediterranean Sea at Calvi (Corsica, France)

The papers in this Special Publication arise from a discussion meeting, ‘Sea-level changes at active plate margins: processes and products’, sponsored by the International Association of Sedimentologists (IAS) and the Geological Society of London, and organized by the British Sedimentological Research Group (BSRG). The meeting was held in London in May 1989. Forty-seven papers and eleven posters were presented, of which 25 are published here. Only one paper in this volume (by Y. Saito) was not presented at the meeting.