Hi Tom:

To find one textbook, which covers both, stable and radiogenic isotopes will
be a challenge.

Environmental Isotope in Hydrology by Clark & Fritz (Lewis Publishers, 1997)
is certainly a good starting point, if your audience is interested in
hydrology. The book is most importantly affordable for students(!) and
covers all the basics as well as H, O, and C isotopes in the hydrological
cycle in sufficient detail. The chapters on sulfur/sulfate and
nitrogen/nitrate are quite short. For more in-depth information on the
sulfur and nitrogen cycle you could consult chapters in Kendall & McDonnell
(Isotope Tracers in Catchment Hydrology, Elsevier 1998) or in Cook & Herczeg
(Environmental Tracers in Subsurface Hydrology, Kluwer Academic Press,
1999). If you look for a good coverage of applications of stable isotope
techniques in the lithosphere, pedosphere, and/or biosphere/ecology you
might find the following books interesting, although some of them are very
expensive and beyond the level of an introductory isotope course.
Lithosphere: K. Kyser, Short Course in Stable Isotope Geochemistry of Low
Temperature Fluids, Vol 13, Mineralogical Association of Canada, May 1987
(dirt cheap).
Pedosphere: Boutton & Yamasaki (1996): Mass Spectrometry of Soils, Marcel
Dekker.
Biology/Ecology: Griffiths (ed., 1998): Stable Isotopes, BIOS Scientific
Publishers Limited or
Lajtha & Michener (1994): Stable Isotopes in Ecology and Environmental
Science, Blackwell.
I have recently ordered a new book by Criss (Principles of Stable Isotope
Distribution, Oxford Univ. Press), but since it has not arrived yet I cannot
comment on its content. For radiogenic isotopes, I am not sure whether there
is anything out there, which can compete with Faure's Principles of Isotope
Geology.

Despite many recently published books, there is to my knowledge still no
perfect textbook for teaching a general introduction to stable and
radiogenic isotopes. Therefore, you should note that recent copy-right
agreements allow you to create your own paperback handout by combining
different chapters or sections from various books for teaching purposes.
After you paid all the fees, you might find that this is not much cheaper
(if at all) than buying one of the above textbooks (and of course a lot more
work), but at least your handout would cover all the topics in your course
(which is highly appreciated by most students).

All for now,

Bernhard

Bernhard Mayer
Associate Professor
University of Calgary
Departments of Physics and Astronomy
and Geology and Geophysics
2500 University Drive NW
Calgary, Alberta
Canada T2N 1N4
phone (403) 220-5389
fax (403) 220-7773
e-mail: [log in to unmask]




> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stable Isotope Geochemistry [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
> Behalf Of Tom Johnson
> Sent: March 22, 2000 3:32 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Isotope texts
>
>
> Dear All:
> Those of you who are teaching isotope geochemistry (stable AND
> radiogenic):
> What are you using for a text?  I think Faure's book is still great but
> it's quite out of date now.  More recent books don't seem to work either.
> Has anyone found that one of these works well for them?  Are there any new
> books out there?  I suspect most of you put together your own readers, but
> I just wanted to check.
>
> -Tom Johnson
>
> ***********************
> Prof. Thomas M. Johnson
> Dept. of Geology
> University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign
> 245 Natural History Bldg. MC-102
> 1301 W. Green St.
> Urbana, IL  61801
> (217) 244-2002
> FAX (217) 244-4996
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Visit the Hydrogeology Program's web site:
> www.geology.uiuc.edu/Hydrogeology
> ************************
>