Perspectives on Biogeochemistry is an account of the origin of forces and matter at the dawn of time, and the way they evolved to planet Earth of today. Several fields of natural sciences are consulted to present a coherent view on the cycling of terrestrial elements and molecules, both organic and inorganic, in the course of time. Critical data are drawn together from astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and geology in order to provide some understanding of the complexity of the system Earth. In this book, E.T. Degens abstracts his knowledge of biogeochemical interactions acquired in more than thirty years of research and teaching. Students and anyone in the natural sciences wanting to familiarize themselves with phenomena prevailing at the periphery of their disciplines will profit by the very thorough and personal view of this pressing topic.

Cooperative research ventures between some new ones, such as a telemetering pin- oceanographic institutions and nations to- ger for getting a continuous temperature day frequently start with a series of official profile and a thermoprobe accurate to meetings, councils, and so forth, followed 0.005 DegreesC. by several years of research, and finally a When the R. V. CHAIN returned home, group of papers ernerging in various techni- there were requests from many laboratories cal journals. The study of the Red Sea is an around the world for sediment samples to exception to this procedure. It is a good analyze. These requests were filled insofar example of the kind of spontaneous cooper- as was possible without exhausting all avail- ation that can occur when individual scien- able sample. tists get excited about a unique problern and Although the hot brine and heavy metal work together exchanging samples and data deposits cover an area of less than 100 and publishing their final results in a single square miles, they are clearly part of a volume. The problern ofthe hot holes ofthe larger geological scheme. The world-wide Red Sea required real teamwork from scien- interest in rift valleys and sea floor spread- tists of many different disciplines as well as ing with their attendant hydrothermal and different nationalities.