Contents of Episodes Vol. 21 No.3, September 1998

Editorial
Extending the functions of earth sciences in promoting sustainable development
for mankind
by Zhou Yongkang

Articles
Sand accumulation and groundwater in the eastern Sahara
by Farouk El-Baz

Paleoenvironments in China during the Last Glacial Maximum and the
Holocene Optimum
by Zheng Zhuo, Yuan Baoyin, and Nicole Petit-Maire

Rhodope controversies
by Ivan S. Zagorchev

Tectonic stress ?eld and large earthquake recurrence period in China
by Liang Haihua, Hou Jianjun, Liu Shuwen, and Zhang Zufeng

Sedimentology and stratigraphy in the 1950s to mid-1980s: The story of a
personal perspective
by Gerald M. Friedman

Integrated sequence-, bio- and chemo-stratigraphy of the terminal Proterozoic
to Lowermost Cambrian "black rock series" from central South China
by Wang Xiaofeng, Bernd-D. Erdtmann, Chen Xiaohong, and Mao Xiaodong

Conference Reports
International Seminar on Geoscience and Urban Development

First International Conference on Geospatial Information in Agriculture
and Forestry

Loess in Argentina—Temperate and Tropical

Meeting of the European Association for the Conservation of Geological Heritage
(ProGEO’98)

A report on the “International Conference on Precambrian and Craton Tectonics”

The Athens Symposium “Engineering Geology and the Environment”

News Reports
Newsletter of Commission on Comparative Planetology

What has GEURBAN done?

Contribution of IGCP 379 “Karst processes and carbon cycle” to global change

Scientists to report on vast Antarctic ice sheet, seek clues to its future

Australia's new national land and water resources audit

Reform of land and resources administration in China

First Annual Earth Science Week in USA set for October

Proposed IGCP Project on Caribbean plate tectonics

Book Reviews
Microbial mats in Japan—Microbial biomineralization

Sedimentary deposits in rift and foreland basin in France and Spain (Paleogene and Lower Neogene)

Geochemical processes, weathering and groundwater recharge in catchments

Fossil and Strata, No. 41: Taxonomy and paleoecology of late Neogene benthic
foraminifera from the Caribbean Sea and eastern equatorial Paci?c Ocean

Fossil and Strata, No. 43: Deep-sea benthic foraminifera from Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary strata in the South Atlantic—taxonomy and paleoecology

Structural geology and personal computers

New publications

Calendar