This completely revised and enlarged second edition provides an up-to-date overview of all major topics in sedimentary geology. It is unique in its quantitative approach to denudation-accumulation systems and basin fillings, including dynamic aspects. The relationship between tectonism and basin evolution as well as the concepts of sequence cycle and event stratigraphy in various depositional environments are extensively discussed. Numerous, often composite figures, a well-structured text, brief summaries in boxes, and several examples from all continents make the book an invaluable source of information for students, researchers and professors in academia as well as for professionals in the oil industry.

From the reviews: .,."The book is so packed with readable information that it is impossible to do justice to the detail in a short review. Intended for advanced students and professionals, it provides a valuable up-to-date general account..." (ESRISAT) .,."This one-author-publication covers the subject in full although it contains an enormous amount of detailed information...The book is enriched by 269 figures, standardized in style and very readable with informative keys...A classic in its field, rooting in the famous school of geology of Georg Wagner at TA1/4bingen, Germany..." (GeoJournal)

There are a series of basins off southern California, all presumably due to faulting of the broad continental borderland. Of these, San Diego Trough is the only one where sedimentation has gone on sufficiently to fill the basin depressions so that there is a continuous slope southward to where the trough connects with the deeper San Clemente Basin. This deposition has apparently come to a very great extent from turbidity currents moving down submarine canyons developing channeled fans at the canyon bases. All along the canyons and channels as well as across the fans and in San Diego Trough there are sequences of turbidite sands alternating with muddy sediments that represent the normal deep water sedimentation. Comparison of the coarse fraction from the sands and from the interbedded muds shows that the former are predominantly terrigenous in character whereas a large proportion of the latter are biogenous. Mica is quite low in the coarser sand layers but is abundant in the coarse fraction of the muds. Diatoms and radiolarians are largely confined to the mud layers where they may constitute a large percentage of the sand fraction. Study of the heavy and light minerals shows that the sediments of San Diego Trough are derived largely from the nearby land masses rather than having a considerable admixture from the north as would be the case if sediments were being brought down by turbidity currents coming into the trough from the north. The alterites are apparently lower in San Diego Trough than in the near shore source area which suggests that a supply of sediments may be picked up from the canyon or channel walls along the way to the trough. Also the finding of the only coarse sands in the middle reaches of the channels suggests local sources as does the general make up of these coarse sands. Despite these locally derived coarse sands the prevalence of very fine sand and the "mud" layers between sand layers suggest that the turbidity currents supplying sediments to San Diego Trough have low velocities or at any rate little erosive capacity.