Geochemical Processes: Water and Sediment Environments

TLDR: The approach of this book to geochemistry can be summarized in the question: What happens, and how fast does it happen, when waters, solids, and gases interact in the earth's surface environment? The environment of the earths surface is made of solids and fluids, and the interactions among them are responsible for much of what is taking place in the physical world around us as mentioned in this paper.

Abstract: The approach of this book to geochemistry can be summarized in the question: What happens, and how fast does it happen, when waters, solids, and gases interact in the earths surface environment? The environment of the earths surface is made of solids and fluids, and theinteractions among them are responsible for much of what is taking place in the physical world around us. The dissolved load of natural waters and the materials of which sediments are made are the products of reactions taking place practically everywhere on land, in the atmosphere, and in the hydrosphere. Thus the term water and sediment environments applies effectivelly to much of the surface environment of the earth, including the zone of up to a few kilometers above and below the land and ocean surface. Evolution present itself to us as a more or less complex variety of processes-geological, physical, chemical, and biological. To this end, the inclusive title Geochemical Processes was chosen for the book, to introduce a text that emphasizes processes and time-dependent phenomena.