Volume 49 of Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry reviews the state of the art of synchrotron
radiation applications in low temperature geochemistry and environmental science and offer
speculations on future developments. The reader of this volume will acquire an appreciation of
the theory and applications of synchrotron radiation in low temperature geochemistry and
environmental science as well as the significant advances that have been made in this area in
the past two decades. It gives a fairly comprehensive overview of synchrotron radiation
applications in low temperature geochemistry and environmental science describes the ways that
synchrotron radiation is generated including a history of synchrotrons and a discussion of
aspects of synchrotron radiation that are important to the experimentalist describes specific
synchrotron methods that are most useful for single-crystal surface and mineral-fluid interface
studies as well as methods that can be used more generally for investigating complex polyphase
fine-grained or amorphous materials including soils rocks and organic matter.
