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),

Geochemistry has led to numerous success stories in mineral exploration. From the relatively simple colorimetric stream sediment analysis through to sophisticated, high technology, isotope geochemical tools, exploration geochemistry has enjoyed a rapid growth and evolution during the second half of the twentieth century. But where is geochemistry heading in the new millennium? This is the issue that this conference seeks to address. <...>

The transfer of small quantities of materials has become an important yet underutilized type of evidence at many crime scenes including hit-and-run accidents and other violent crimes. Although the utility of trace elemental analyses and comparisons for glass and paint fragments by sophisticated methods such as laser ablation inductively coupled plasma (LA-ICP-MS) has been shown to offer a high degree of discrimination between different sources of these materials, the high expense and sophistication of this technique has limited the adoption of this technology by the typical forensic laboratory, although there are now approximately 5 forensic laboratories in the U.S. with LA-ICP-MS capabilities.