For a small child, the world is full of wonders. Everyday it discovers new ones. Soon it starts to ask tough questions like: “Why does an apple fall down from a tree, why does the water in an alpine river with large rocks partly flow uphill, why is the
Sun hot and why does it turn red in the evening, how is a rock formed and when did it happen”? <...>

While the need to revise this handbook – first published in 1993 – had become glaringly obvious, its general format, level of detail and breadth of coverage has proved to be of enduring value. The original work focused on the Australian mining industry, but it has become clear that its market has been much wider than that over the years, and the authors have tried to keep that in mind in this update.

This book is based on the classic work through five editions by Richard Cowen, and many of his words remain in this new edition. Among the team of revisers, Mike Benton led the revision, contributing more or less to all chapters, supported by Tom Williams (Chapters 1–3), John Cunningham (Chapters 4 and 5), Davide Pisani (Chapters 3–5), Phil Donoghue (Chapters 4, 5, 7 and 8), Daniela Schmidt and Andy Fraass (Chapter 17), Christine Janis and Emily Rayfield (Chapters 18–21 and 23), and Tom Davies (Chapter 22). <...>

15 outcrops exposing sediments of Early and Late Cretaceous age (Berriasian-Campanian) are described from the Subhercynian Basin (Quedlinburg-Blankenburg area) and the eastern part of Lower Saxony (Salzgitter-Hannover area). Apart from the bio- and lithostratigraphy, the fauna, flora, sedimentology, the palaeoenvironment and the regional position of these outcrops is discussed. New data and results going back to research performed from 1990 to 1996 are presented and sequence-stratigraphic models are proposed for some outcrops. Some of the microfauna and -flora and the macrofauna is documented by plates.

The following outcrops exposing sediments of Early Cretaceous age are described: the Obernkirchen Sandstone (Berriasian) at Munchehagen (No. 15), mid-Hauterivian sediments rich in ammonites near Resse (No. 13), pale-dark bedding rhythms of Late Hauterivian age near Frielingen (No. 14), Hauterivian iron ores of the Glockenberg section (No. 5) and clays of Barremian and Aptian age near Sarstedt (No. 9). Outcrops of sediments of Late Cretaceous age are: Hoppenstedt (No. 3), Vienenburg (No. 4), Baddeckenstedt (No. 6), and the HPCF II quarry at Misburg (No. 10), exposing the Cenomanian and Lower Turonian; the sediments exposed in the Salzgitter-Salder quarry (No. 7) are of mid-Turonian to Early Coniacian age, the Lehofsberg section near Quedlinburg (No. 1) is of mid-Coniacian age; shallow marine elastics of early Campanian age of the Subhercynian Basin are described from near Blankenburg (No. 2), marly and calcareous Campanian basinal sediments are exposed in the HPCF II (No. 10), Germania IV (No. 11) and Teutonia I (No. 12) quarries at Misburg.