Book excerpt: "This volume presents current understanding of the mechanisms and environments of the formation of calcretes and palustrine carbonates. Through a series of specific field examples, papers in this volume illustrate the wide variety of potential applications of these types of deposits. The papers presented here cover a wide array of ages and environmental settings of calcrete and palustrine deposition and include many interesting applications, such as the climatic and geomorphic controls on calcrete formation, possible modern analogues for palustrine carbonates, the interplay between palustrine, pedogenic, and diagenetic processes, the utility of radio-isotopic methods for dating pedogenic carbonates, applications to understanding landscape evolution, and reconstruction of diagenetic sequences. The result is a state-of-the-art book on these deposits so common in the geological record and in recent environments."--Publisher's website.