Chemical Fundamentals of Geology (first edition 1989 Unwin Hyman subsequently acquired by HarperCollins; second edition 1996 Chapman and Hall, acquired by Kluwer then Springer) has become an established textbook adopted in numerous universities in the UK, North America, Australasia, several European countries (a German translation of the first edition was produced in 1993 by Ferdinand Enke) and elsewhere (e.g. Indonesia, Egypt). Both editions of the book have attracted favourable reviews[1] in academic journals and magazines around the world.

Many Earth science departments here and in North America today recruit as many students to environmental earth science degree programmes as to mainstream geology. This student-led change in academic emphasis – along with the continuing decline in the chemical knowledge of incoming Earth science degree students, especially those on environmental programmes – suggests that any successor to Chemical Fundamentals will sell to a wider audience if it covers the basic chemistry that underpins environmental geoscience as well as core geology[2]. This shift in emphasis is reflected in the proposed new title.

Objectives

As for the original book, the objectives of the proposed book may be summarised as:

· equipping the geology or environmental geoscience student with the chemical understanding and vocabulary required to engage fully with a degree programme in either discipline;

· providing a source of easy reference and further reading for such students;

· increasing a diffident student's self-confidence in confronting fundamental science.

Priority is given to explaining the chemical principles behind Earth and environental science rather than delivering the factual content of those disciplines

[1] One reviewer described the second edition as ‘a well-organized, lucid, clearly written, and emin-ently user-friendly text’ (Tomas Feininger in Canadian Mineralogist, 1997). Another said 'my copy of the first edition of this book has a battered cover and dirty fingerprints on the pages reflecting the use it has had ... I expect my copy of the second edition will be equally scarred in seven years fron now.' (Julian E Andrews in Geoscientist).

[2] A reviewer of the 2nd edition of Chemical Fundamentals said 'The book is clearly targeted at students of geology and traditional earth science. It will have less appeal to environmental science students where the emphasis typically is on low temperature and aqueous geochemistry (Julian E Andrew in Geoscientist).