This volume provides a review and synthesizes the accomplishments of the past decade of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program. More importantly, it defines opportunities for scientific advancement through future drilling projects addressing a broad range of disciplines in the Earth Sciences. In addition there is a review of all past projects that were supported by the ICDP, as well as of technical aspects associated with continental drilling.

A collection of international contributions presenting current knowledge of impact tectonics, geological and geophysical investigations of terrestrial impact structures, and suggested new impact structures, resulting from the IMPACT program.

The authors have synthesized 16 years of geological and geophysical studies which document an 85-km-wide impact crater buried 500 m beneath Chesapeake Bay in south eastern Virginia, USA. In doing so, they have integrated extensive seismic reflection profiling and deep core drilling to analyze the structure, morphology, gravimetrics, sedimentology, petrology, geochemistry, and paleontology of this submarine structure. Of special interest are a detailed comparison with other terrestrial and extraterrestrial craters, as well as a conceptual model and computer simulation of the impact. The extensive illustrations encompass more than 150 line drawings and core photographs. An accompanying CD-ROM includes selected seismic profiles, scaled cross sections, detailed maps, and downhole geophysical logs.

This volume is the third in a series of impact books resulting from the activities of the scientific programme, Response of the Earth System to Impact Processes (IMPACT), funded by the European Science Foundation. The volume begins with an overview of impact markers in the stratigraphic record, and is followed by three general papers on various aspects of impact cratering, ranging from a suggested nomenclature of impact product to a treatment of the hypothesis that impacts can trigger mantle plumes. Then follow 10 original contributions on various impact deposits in the stratigraphic record, ordered by increasing age, ranging from the Late Eocene Popigai impact crater to the K-T boundary to the J-K boundary and Late Devonian and Ordovician deposits.

A collection of international contributions presenting current knowledge of impact tectonics, geological and geophysical investigations of terrestrial impact structures, and suggested new impact structures, resulting from the IMPACT program.

The authors have synthesized 16 years of geological and geophysical studies which document an 85-km-wide impact crater buried 500 m beneath Chesapeake Bay in south eastern Virginia, USA. In doing so, they haveintegrated extensive seismic reflection profiling and deep core drilling to analyze the structure, morphology, gravimetrics, sedimentology, petrology, geochemistry, and paleontology of this submarine structure. Of special interest are a detailed comparison with other terrestrial and extraterrestrial craters, as well as a conceptual model and computer simulation of the impact. The extensive illustrations encompass more than 150 line drawings and core photographs."

The present volume is an outcome of the scientific programme "Response of the Earth System to Impact Processes" (IMPACT) by the European Science Foundation (ESF). The ESF is an association of 67 national member organizations devoted to scientific research in 24 European countries. The IMPACT programme is aimed at understanding meteorite impact processes and their effects on the Earth System. Launched in 1998 for duration of 5 years, 15 ESF member organizations now participate in this programme, which will officially end in late 2003, although the momentum gained for European (and worldwide) impact research will be carried on in other programs and organizations. The programme deals with all aspects of meteorite impact research and operates through workshops, exchange programs, publications, and short courses. This particular book is the third in an informal series on "Impact Studies," which is published by Springer and intended to go beyond the ESF IMPACT programme by providing a venue for high quality (and peer-reviewed) monographs and conference and workshop proceedings on general topics connected to impact cratering and related research. th The 6 ESF-Impact workshop "Impact makers in the stratigraphic record" was held in Granada (Spain) on May 2001, with about sixty scientists from Europe, Taiwan, and North America attending the workshop. During the workshop 30 oral, 32 poster, and 3 keynote contributions were presented.

The biological effects of asteroid and comet impacts have been widely viewed as primarily destructive. The role of an impactor in the K/T boundary extinctions has had a particularly important influence on thinking concerning the role of impacts in ecological and biological changes. th During the 10 and final workshop of the ESF IMPACT program during March 2003, we sought to investigate the wider aspects of the involvement of impact events in biological processes, including the beneficial role of these events from the prebiotic through to the ecosystem level. The ESF IMPACT programme (1998-2003) was an interdisciplinary effort that is aimed at understanding impact processes and their effects on the Earth environment, including environmental, geological and biological changes. The IMPACT programme has 15 member states and the activities of the programme range from workshops to short courses on topics such as impact stratigraphy, shock metamorphism, etc. The program has also awarded mobility grants and been involved in the development of teaching aids and numerous publications, including this one.

This book provides a general introduction to impact stratigraphy, with emphasis on the recognition of distal impact ejecta in the field, by focusing on the impactoclastic layers of the Umbria-Marche sequence in Central Italy, with an almost perfect stratigraphic record over the last 200 Million years. A general introduction to impact cratering and a discussion of distal ejecta and impact layers around the world is followed by a detailed description of the record of the impact of extraterrestrial bodies in sediments of the Umbria-Marche Apennines. The volume is of interest to a diverse audience in the geological and planetary sciences, ranging from (upper) undergraduate to research level. This book can also be used by students and researchers as a field guide to some of the most important Italian impact layers.

Only 10% of the 150 or so known impact craters on Earth date from the early Precambrian Era, a time period covering some 88% of the Earth's history. Yet this Era encompasses fundamental events in the origin and evolution of our planet from the origin of life itself to the development of continents. The papers in this volume were presented at a workshop sponsored by the European Science Foundation Scientific Network on Impact cratering held in Cambridge, UK, in December 1998. The papers outline the present state of scientific understanding of the role impacts may have played in the biological and geological evolution of the Early Earth.