Book excerpt: This volume provides a comprehensive overview of calcareous algae and stromatolites. It contains reviews by leading specialists of major groups, together with accounts of floras through time. It deals with marine and non-marine, benthic and planktic, and modern as well as ancient examples. As the first multi-authored review of the field ever published in English, it is an essential reference text for this complex field. It is designed for both postgraduate researchers and professional scientists who require up-to-date and authoritative information on these long-ranging organisms and fabrics which are of wide evolutionary, environmental and sedimentary significance.