opportunity for new work that actually draws together theexpertise of the two groups of scientists represented in thisbook. Clearly this is a timely volume. The editors have correctlyidentified an area where more co-operation would be valuable,and this book should go a long way towards stimulating theinteraction and cross-fertilisation of ideas that should inspirethat co-operation.

PETER G. KNIGHTSchool of Earth Sciences and Geography

Keele UniversityKeele

Staffordshire ST5 5BGEngland

Published online in Wiley InterScience(www.interscience.wiley.com).

DOI: 10.1002/jqs.829

Glacier-influencedsedimentation on high-latitudecontinental marginsJ. A. DOWDESWELL and C. COFAIGH (eds)

Publisher Special Publication 203, Geological SocietyPublishing House, Bath 2002 (373 pp) £90.00/US$150.00ISBN 1 86239 120 3

The remit of this book—resulting from a Geological Societymeeting held at the University of Bristol in 2001-is squarelyset out in Julian Dowdeswell and Colm Cofaigh’s introduction:it is to follow and update the earlier Geological Society SpecialPublication on glaciomarine environments (edited by Dowdes-well and Scourse), produced in 1990. This is a somewhat boldremit since the earlier book is a very useful text and one towhich I, and I am sure many others, often refer. Dowdeswelland Cofaigh’s introduction identifies three areas of researchin the glaciomarine environment that have developed signifi-cantly since the earlier book. These areas are (i) glacier-influ-enced continental slope sedimentation, (ii) iceberg-raftingprocesses and events, and (iii) ice-sheet reconstruction fromthe geomorphology of continental shelves. Concomitantadvances in dating, modelling, geophysical remote sensingand image processing are not mentioned. The book contains18 chapters, half of them by British-based authors (includingfive by Dowdeswell’s own group at Cambridge and, formerly,at Bristol) and with a temporal focus on late Quaternary andHolocene environments. The book’s title also implies consid-eration of a range of geological and geographical settings. Onlytwo chapters, however, discuss evidence from the SouthernHemisphere and two others focus on the UK continental shelf(which can scarcely be called ‘high-latitude’). In addition, thethree areas of research identified by Dowdeswell and Cofaighare unequally represented in the book, with slope sedimenta-tion studies representing about half of all contributions, andwith a dominant geographical focus on the Norwegian–Green-land–Barents Seas.Characteristically, all the papers in this volume are produced

to a high standard with generally clear figures and typo-freetext. A number of papers have coloured diagrams, which isvisually pleasing, but those in the paper by O’Grady andSyvitski, for example, are grainy and need further annotation.Elsewhere, diagrams in Shipp et al.’s paper occupy single pages

when they would look far better on half-pages. As befitting abook in which slope sedimentation is a feature, fig. 4a ofDowdeswell et al.’s paper has been reproduced later in thebook as Taylor et al.’s fig. 2a (with slightly different fan marginsshown), and fig. 4b as Cofaigh et al.’s fig. 7a.The most pleasing contributions in this book are those chap-

ters by Evans et al. and Powell and Cooper. Evans et al. discussthe late Quaternary deglaciation of Kejser Franz Joseph Fjord,east Greenland, using sub-bottom geophysical techniquescoupled with radiocarbon-dated gravity cores. Sedimentationpatterns are related to the position of the ice margin, slopereworking, and the strength of the East Greenland Current.The paper by Powell and Cooper uses a systems tract approachto construct a sequence stratigraphical model for glaciatedshelf environments. This provides a good theoretical frame-work for considering the role of sea-level versus mass-move-ment processes in sediment redistribution on glaciatedshelves. Other notable papers in this volume include modellingapproaches to submarine debris slides by Elverhøi et al. andTalling et al., and Jaeger’s paper on calculating glaciomarinesedimentation rates using 234Th radioisotopes.Compared with Dowdeswell and Scourse (1990), the present

volume highlights the progress made in the Norwegian–Greenland–Barents Seas region. Other regions such as Antarc-tica fare less well, which is concealed, in part, by the loosearrangement of chapters. The inclusion of work from otherimportant institutes, such as GEOMAR, also awaits a futurevolume.Although probably too expensive for individuals, Glacier-

influenced Sedimentation as a stand-alone book contains someuseful theoretical and applied material, and will usefully com-plement its older companion.

Reference

Dowdeswell JA, Scourse JD. 1990. Glacimarine Environments: Pro-cesses and Sediments. Special Publication 53, Geological SocietyPublishing House: Bath; 423 pp.

JASPER KNIGHTDepartment of GeographyLoughborough University

LoughboroughLeicestershire LE11 3TU

England

Published online in Wiley InterScience(www.interscience.wiley.com).

DOI: 10.1002/jqs.830

Rivers and floodplains:forms, processes,and sedimentary record

J. S. BRIDGE

Publisher Blackwell Science, Oxford 2003 (491 pp) £34.99ISBN 0 632 06489 7 (paperback)

This book gives a detailed overview of the fundamentals ofwater flow and sediment transport, bedforms and sedimentarystructures. Explicit depositional models for channel and bar

618 BOOK REVIEWS

Copyright � 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Quaternary Sci., Vol. 19(6) 617–622 (2004)