Introduction

This book is arranged with depositional features first, followed by diagenesis, although the final appearance of a carbonate rock is often as much the product of the secondary, diagenetic processes it has suffered, as it is of primary depositional processes. For this reason, diagenetic features visible in the photographs of depositional features are commented on in the text as well as vice-versa. In most cases we have cross-referenced to the definition of terms used, and we have provided an index for quick reference to the main descriptions and illustrations of technical terms.