Atlas of infrared spectroscopy of clay minerals and their admixtures

156 oceans are reviewed. Recent sedimentation, from the shelves to the deep-sea floor, is also very well covered in 8 separate chapters, providing an up-to-date r~sum6 of all the types and conditions of sediment likely to be encountered, not only at the present day, but also in the earlier record of the present continental margins. Altogether there are almost 120 contributors to the volume, providing over 70 articles. This bringing together of information on the earth's continental margins appears at a very significant time, when the JOIDES organisation is actively preparing its Active and Passive Ocean Margin schedules for the International Program of Ocean Drilling phase of the Deep-Sea Drilling Project. This will perhaps, over the next three years, turn our continental-based view of the ocean margins into an ocean-based view of the continental margins. It remains to be seen whether many of the theoretical and practical inferences presented in this volume will be confirmed by the concrete evidence returned to the surface by the drill bit. In the meantime engineering geologists can savour from this book the problems that are likely to be encountered when we set out in earnest to exploit the resources of the continental ocean margins. B.M.FUNNELL (Norwich)

Atlas o f Infrared Spectroscopy o f Clay Minerals and Their Admixtures. H.W. van der Marel and H. Beutelspacher. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1976, viii + 396 pp., Dfl.165.00. In the identification of clays and associated minerals, no single m e t h o d provides all the answers, not even X-ray diffraction methods. The present volume, by making readily available a comprehensive compilation of infrared spectra, will be welcomed for providing additional data for identification purposes. Like the previous volume by the same authors, "Atlas of Electron Microscopy of Clay Minerals and Their Admixtures", this book is primarily an atlas which aims at making the infrared spectra of clay minerals as useful as the much larger compilations for organic substances. Unfortunately, there is a vast difference between the sharp multi-lined patterns of organics and the mainly broad bands of mineral spectra. However, combined with other techniques, infrared spectra have important contributions to make to mineral identification and these will be more readily utilized with the help of the data in this book. The authors provide a short introduction to the instrumentation of infrared spectroscopy and the techniques of sample preparation, and discuss briefly the nature of the vibrations responsible for the spectra and the structures of the minerals involved. Chapter 6, which deals with the various clays and related minerals and occupies almost half the book, has 34 pp. of text and 140 pp. of spectra. The coverage of minerals is generally very good and I have noted only one omission worth mentioning, namely the absence of the hydrous hydroxy-carbonates, hydrotalcite, etc., for which infrared analysis has been specially useful. One

of the merits of the b o o k is that all the spectra have been obtained by the same or similar procedures and therefore are easily compared. The sectional bibliographies often seem to be oriented towards references of historical interest. The main bibliography, pp.347--387, which is organized under general headings and specific mineral groups, will be extremely useful. The b o o k is well printed and substantially bound. Unlike the previous atlas with parallel columns of text in English and German, the present volume is wholly in very good English. I do wonder why the authors used ethyl alcohol, ethanol, and aethanol! One can see considerable use for this b o o k in laboratories where infrared patterns are recorded as part of a procedure for the identification and study of clays and related minerals. G.W. BRINDLEY (University Park, Pa.)

Oil from Shale and Tar Sands. Edward M. Perrini. Noyes Data Corp., Park Ridge, N.J., 1975, 307 pp., U.S. $36.00. This excellent reference b o o k is a review of selected U.S. patents on oil shale and tar sands processing. The period covered is essentially from 1960 to 1975, although 17 earlier patents are also mentioned. In 1950 Simon Klosky, U.S. Bureau of Mines, published a review of more than 3000 patents on shale retorting and refining, which had been issued up to that date. The present work by Perrini is a welcome update of Klosky's original compendium. The author has described some 215 patented processes related to the retorting and refining of oil shale, and the separation and refining of oil from tar sands. Many of these processes have obviously been selected because they appear to have potential for commercial development over the next ten years. The subject matter has been divided into five chapters, viz, oil shale retorting, oil shale refining processes, tar sands separation processes, tar sands retorting and refining processes, and recovery of metal values (mostly from oil shale). In each section the author has attempted to present "an advanced, commercially-oriented review" of the pertinent patent literature of the past 15 years, "eliminating the legal jargon and juristic phraseology" of the patents themselves, but retaining many of the original patent (process and apparatus) diagrams. The results are clear, readable, technically accurate descriptions of each patent easily understandable by an "informal" reader who, nevertheless, might not necessarily be a technical expert in the subject. Three very useful indices have been included. These include a U.S. Patent Number Index, an index of Inventor's Names, and a Company Index of organizations to whom individual patents have been assigned. The oil shale retorting patents are divided into those involving gas combustion, solid heat carriers, in-situ pyrolysis, and various miscellaneous processes. None of these processes are currently used commercially, since no oil shale industry presently exists. However, a number of the methods have reached successful pilot plant stage, and are leading contenders for full scale-up