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 <...>

Fluids rich in water, carbon and sulfur species and a variety of dissolved salts are a ubiquitous transport medium for heat and matter in the Earth’s interior. Fluid transport through the upper mantle and crust controls the origin of magmatism above subduction zones and results in natural risks of explosive volcanism. Fluids passing through rocks affect the chemical and heat budget of the global oceans, and can be utilized as a source of geothermal energy on land.

Initially, I approached this book with a certain trepidation. Forseveral decades, surface geochemistry has been a controversial subject when applied to petroleum exploration. Vertical migration is not a new concept, but the mechanism by which it occurs is still not clear. Quantifying all the different elements from the seal rock to the soil may be an insurmountable task, but we can identify, discuss, and interpret the principal ones.

This is one of a Series of Volumes on Oceanography. It is designed so that it can be read on its own, like any other textbook, or studied as part of S330 Oceanography, a third level course for Open University students. The science of oceanography as a whole is multidisciplinary. However, different aspects fall naturally within the scope of one or other of the major ‘traditional1 disciplines.

The monograph series published by the Mineralogical Society has until now been concerned mainly with the application of techniques like X-ray diffraction, thermal analysis, infrared spectroscopy and electron optical methods to the identification and study of clay minerals. Inevitably much information about the chemical constitution was contained within these volumes and was essential to them. However, it seemed that there was also a need for a monograph that contained all this information in one volume and also covered some wider aspects of clay chemistry such as their colloid behaviour and surface chemistry, their reactions with organic substances and to heating, and the chemical conditions necessary for their formation.

Phase equilibria exist or are being strived for all around us. Most industrial processes are designed for and operate near equilibrium conditions; even when this is not so, it is important to know what would happen at equilibrium. Chemical engineering processes of primary importance are those of mixing, conversion, and separation involving gases, liquids, and solids. This book is devoted to the thermodynamic basis and practical aspects of the calculation of equilibrium conditions of multiple phases that are pertinent to such processes.

The results of the data analysis for a geochemistry relational database to hold the UK, land-based datasets currently managed by the Minerals and Geochemical Surveys Division plus some other geochemical datasets held by BGS are presented in full in the form of a geochemistry data model.

Geochemical mapping programs carried out by the Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) have generated large databases containing information on the concentrations of chemical elements in rocks, surface sediments and biogeochemical materials. Regional geochemical data being imprecise, multivariate, spatially auto-correlated and non-normally distributed pose specific problems to the choice of data analysis methods. Commonly several methods are combined, and the choice of techniques depends on the characteristics of data as well as the purpose of study.

A large regional geochemical data set of O-horizon samples from a 188,000 km2 area in the European Arctic, analysed for 38 chemical elements, pH, electrical conductivity (both in a water extraction) and loss on ignition (LOI, 480 oC), was used to test the influence of different variants of cluster analysis on the results obtained. Due to the nature of regional geochemical data (neither normal nor log-normal, strongly skewed, often multi-modal data distributions),