Book excerpt: In the last ten years offshore mineral exploration programmes have increasingly concentrated on the 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zones adjacent to coastal states. This book gives an integrated treatment of the various mineral types occuring in these zones, their genesis, distribution and economic importance. The book opens with a broad overview of the subject and discusses the legislative issues relevant to marine and mineral exploitation. Chapters then deal in turn with aggregates, placers, precious coral, phosphorites, manganese nodules, cobalt-rich manganese crusts and hydrothermal deposits. An international set of case studies illustrates each type of deposit, many studies based on the author's own experience in marine mineral evaluation programmes around the world during the past 25 years.