The study of rocks using thin sections and a petrographic microscope was initiated by llcnry Clifton Sorby in the middle of the nineteenth century and the first rocks he described were silicified limestones from the Jurassic in Yorkshire. This work was published in 1851. His presidential address to the Geological Society of London in 1879 was entitled 'On the structure and origin of limestones' and Sorby had a series of plates. made from camera Iucida drawings, reproduced for private circulation with copies of the text of his address. These illustrated the microscopic characteristics oflimestones from throughout the British geological record and amounted to the first petrographic atlas <...>

Remote sensing has been immensely useful in tectonics, structural geology, and geomorphic studies (e.g. Misra et al. 2014; Dasgupta and Mukherjee 2017, 2019; Shaikh et al. 2020; Dasgupta et al. 2022). This edited book consists of 24 chapters authored and co-authored by 53 persons from 21 academic organizations and industries from 7 countries.
Misra (2022a; Chapter 1) presents the definition, fundamental processes, and scopes of remote sensing in structural geologic and geomorphologic studies. Misra (2022b; Chapter 2) pens the next introductory chapter, which classifies remote sensing based on data type, source, platform, and imaging media. Gupta and Biswas (2022, Chapter 3) present a morpho-tectonic analysis of a mid-channel bar using remote sensing images from the Jaldhaka river (India). Deota et al. (2022, Chapter 4) present geomorphic indicators of glacier retreat from Jorya-Garang glacier, Baspa Valley (India). They identify different stages of moraines. Jordan (2022, Chapter 5) presents several interesting aerial views of the 2018 Kilauea eruption (U.S.A). Geomorphic features such as lava fissures are documented from images. Awais (2022, Chapter 6) documents different kinds of depositional systems observable in images in Google Earth, viz. different rivers, deltas, lakes, alluvial fans, dunes, and estuaries. Patel et al. (2022, Chapter 7) discuss in detail badland geomorphology from images and several field photos. Their study area was Garbeta (India). Dongare et al. (2022, Chapter 8) discuss the geomorphology of the Indian west coast.

Most simply put, taphonomy is the study of processes affecting the transition of the remains of past living organisms and their traces into the lithosphere as seen in the prehistoric record. It has many aspects, from processes affecting individual organisms to those affecting whole communities, but at its most basic level, the processes on which taphonomic interpretations are based are the same. Process is thus defined as the action of a taphonomic agent (Lyman 1994a), the agent being the immediate cause of modifications. The evidence by which process is identified in the fossil record is the effect it has on fossils, the biological, chemical and physical modifications preserved on the fossils. These modifications may be identified and interpreted through comparisons with observed processes produced by known agents acting on previously unmodified bones at the present time, either in experimentally controlled conditions or by naturalistic monitoring projects where agents and processes are known. <...>

More than thirty years ago, microprobe analysis introduced the possibility of analyzing quantitatively in situ small surfaces of polished sections, rendering obsolete many of the optical measurements and other data that had been presented in many standard ore-mineralogy textbooks, and thus a new approach to the subject was called for. In addition, it should also be pointed out that whereas many excellent books are available on the mineralogy of ore minerals (see page 218) and a thorough treatment of mineral species is presented in their special sections, it is believed that as microprobe analytical facilities develop and are widely applied, the identification and compositional variation of ore minerals will become more and more a matter of microprobe analysis and x-ray studies. <...>