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Abstract

This volume is unique in its consideration of severe oxygen depletion in coastal shelf waters from the perspectives of both marine ecology and geology. Seasonal anoxia is a serious problem in the coastal waters of Europe, North America and Japan. Its drastic impact on environmental quality and on marine inshore fisheries has stimulated intensive research, in particular into the relative roles of biological and meteorological variables and of anthropogenic eutrophication. However, continental shelf anoxia is not a new phenomenon: at many times in the geological past vast areas of extensive shelf seas experienced episodes of severe oxygen depletion that lasted from thousands to millions of years, depositing most of the source beds for the world's hydrocarbon reserves. This fact stimulated intensive research into the sedimentology, palaeoecology and organic and inorganic geochemistry of these sediments. The editors' introductory review highlights the significance of the modern studies for an improved understanding of the ancient oxygen-deficient continental shelf environments. Accounts of modern anoxia are then presented, from areas as diverse as the Gulf of Mexico. New York Bight, Chesape.ake Bay, the Adriatic Sea, SW Africa and Peru-Chile. These are followed by Devonian to Tertiary examples of ancient anoxic facies from the USA, Greenland, Germany, UK, Brazil. France and Hungary. It is hoped that this book will inspire further research into this economically and environmentally important phenomenon.