Amino Acids are not only the essential constituents of all living organisms, they also provide vital clues about life in the past. This book of contributed papers updates the science of amino acid geochemistry and replaces a classic but now outdated work, The Biogeochemistry of Amino Acids (out of print). The new book will have a wider focus than its predecessor, covering preservation of ancient proteins and amino acids, diagenesis of proteins and amino acids through geologic time and on short time scales (relevant to the preservation of museum materials), stable isotope geochemistry of proteins and amino acids, amino acid racemization, the origin of life, the stability of amino acids at hgh temperatures and pressures, and extraterrestrial amino acids. The primary audience for this book will be academics and graduate students in geochemistry, organic chemistry, archaeology, geochronology, and stratigraphy, although it will also be of interest to workers in forensic science.

As this is the first general textbook for the field published in over twenty years, the editors have taken great care to make sure coverage is comprehensive. Diagenesis of organic matter, kerogens, exploration for fossil fuels, and many other subjects are discussed in detail to provide faculty and students with a thorough introduction to organic geochemistry.

Ocean margins are the transitional zones between the oceans and continents. They represent dynamic systems in which numerous processes shape the environment and result in impacting the utilization and hazard potentials for humans. These processes are influenced by a variety of steering mechanisms, from mountain building and climate on the land to tectonics and sea-level fluctuations in ocean margins. This book examines various aspects of regulation for the long-term development of ocean margins, of the impact of fluids and of the dynamics of benthic life at and below the seafloor in ocean margin systems.

The past two or three decades have seen many important advances in our knowledge of the chemistry, physics, geology and biology of the oceans. It has also become apparent that in order to understand the manner in which the oceans work as a 'chemical system', it is necessary to use a framework which takes account of these interdisciplinary advances. Marine geochemistry has been written in response to the need for a single state-of-the-art text that addresses the subject of treating the sea water, sediment and rock reservoirs as a unified system. In taking this approach, a process-orientated framework has been adopted in which the emphasis is placed on identifying key processes operating within the 'unified ocean'. In doing this, particular attention has been paid to making the text accessible to students from all disciplines in such a way that future advances can readily be understood. I would like to express my thanks to those people who have helped with the writing of this volume. In particular, I wish to put on record my sincere appreciation of extremely helpful suggestions made by Professor John Edmond, FRS. In addition, I thank Dr S. Rowlatt for his comments on the sections covering the geochemistry of oceanic sediments, and Dr G. Wolff for his invaluable advice on the organic geochemistry of biota, water and sediments. It is a great pleasure to acknowledge the help of Dr K. J. T.

Biogeochemistry of Marine Dissolved Organic Matter, 3rd edition is the most up-to-date revision of the fundamental reference for the biogeochemistry of marine dissolved organic matter. Since its original publication in June 2002, the science, questions, and priorities have advanced, and the editors of this essential guide, have added nine new chapters, including one on the South China Sea. An indispensable manual edited by the most distinguished experts in the field, this book is addressed to graduate students, marine scientists, and all professionals interested in advancing their knowledge of the field. - Features up-to-date knowledge on DOM, including 9 new chapters - Presents the only published work to synthesize recent research on dissolved organic carbon in the South China Sea, a region receiving a great deal of attention in recent decades - Offers contributions by world-class research leaders

The processes occurring in surface marine sediments have a profound effect on the local and global cycling of many elements. This graduate text presents the fundamentals of marine sediment geochemistry by examining the complex chemical, biological, and physical processes that contribute to the conversion of these sediments to rock, a process known as early diagenesis. Research over the past three decades has uncovered the fact that the oxidation of organic matter deposited in sediment acts as a causative agent for many early diagenetic changes. Summarizing and discussing these findings and providing a much-needed update to Robert Berner's Early Diagenesis: A Theoretical Approach, David J. Burdige describes the ways to quantify geochemical processes in marine sediment. By doing so, he offers a deeper understanding of the cycling of elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, along with important metals such as iron and manganese. No other book presents such an in-depth look at marine sediment geochemistry. Including the most up-to-date research, a complete survey of the subject, explanatory text, and the most recent mathematical formulations that have contributed to our greater understanding of early diagenesis, Geochemistry of Marine Sediments will interest graduate students of geology, geochemistry, and oceanography, as well as the broader community of earth scientists. It is poised to become the standard text on the subject for years to come.

The explosion of interest, effort, and information about the ocean since about 1950 has produced many thousand scientific articles and many hun dred books. In fact, the outpouring has been so large that authors have been unable to read much of what has been published, so they have tended to concentrate their own work within smaller and smaller subfields of oceanog raphy. Summaries of information published in books have taken two main paths. One is the grouping of separately authored chapters into symposia type books, with their inevitable overlaps and gaps between chapters. The other is production of lightly researched books containing drawings and tables from previous pUblications, with due credit given but showing assem bly-line writing with little penetration of the unknown. Only a few books have combined new and previous data and thoughts into new maps and syntheses that relate the contributions of observed biological, chemical, geological, and physical processes to solve broad problems associated with the shape, composition, and history of the oceans. Such a broad synthesis is the objective of this book, in which we tried to bring together many of the pieces of research that were deemed to be of manageable size by their originators. The composite may form a sort of plateau above which later studies can rise, possibly benefited by our assem bly of data in the form of new maps and figures.