An ever-increasing concern over environmental degradation, together with recent technological advances, has spawned an explosion of chemical data for a wide variety of matter found on earth and in the solar system. Yuan-Hui Li's book offers professionals and students alike an indispensable up-to-date guide to geochemistry, bringing together new information on topics ranging from nucleosynthesis to crystal chemistry, from the systematics of chemical variation in the earth's core to the composition of complex organics. The objective is to illustrate the physicochemical principles and various natural processes that can explain observed compositional changes in natural substances. A general understanding of these principles and processes (including those pertaining to cosmology, geology, and biology) is essential, maintains the author, for deciphering and predicting transport pathways and final sinks of anthropogenic pollutants in our environment. The book focuses on compositional data and related references for such substances as solar photosphere, meteorites, igneous rocks, soils, sedimentary rocks, surficial waters, marine and terrestrial organisms (including humans), and aerosols. It emphasizes the use of original raw data as much as possible, and applies the statistical technique of factor analysis to elucidate any underlying interrelationships among chemical elements and given sample sets. Whenever applicable, simple chemical thermodynamic models are introduced to explain the observed partitioning of elements among different phases.

This book will fill an important niche in the field of geochemistry. The compilation covers an enormous amount of data and is a most valuable addition to the literature. -- Heinrich D. Holland, Harvard University This book emerges at a time when the scientific community recognizes the need for geochemical reference data sets. Yuan-Hui Li couples an extremely wide range of topics with an in-depth treatment that is very close to state-of-the art. A Compendium of Geochemistry may be seen as a resource to researchers who wish to expand into other fields and as a complement to traditional geochemistry textbooks, one that is useful to students as well as teachers. -- Hubert Staudigel, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego

About the Author
Yuan-Hui Li is Professor of Oceanography at the University of Hawaii. His research interests include the study of biogeochemical cycles of elements and environmental pollution by trace metals and radionuclides.

Reviews
"Li includes a more diverse range of topics than does any remotely comparable work, and stresses the importance of cosmological, geological, and biological processes in understanding Earth's environment ... A timely addition to the geochemical literature and the best available compilation of data in recent decades."--Choice



Book Information
ISBN 9780691009384
Author Yuan-Hui Li
Format Hardback
Page Count 440
Imprint Princeton University Press
Publisher Princeton University Press
Weight(grams) 794g