This volume contains a compilation of 17 seminal papers, taken from various Geological Society Special Publications and the Journal of the Geological Society, on the use and application of stratigraphy in petroleum geology over the last 20 years. The volume focuses on case studies in fundamental stratigraphy, applied and integrated stratigraphy and alternative methods of stratigraphy. The book is introduced with an original scientific and historical review of the subject: all papers are set in context with both the benefits of the techniques and some of the short-comings highlighted. By compiling these papers, commercial stratigraphers John Gregory, Philip Copestake and Julian Pearce have created a volume intended for a wide readership. However, it is of particular relevance for the training of undergraduate students studying courses on petroleum geology, basin development and sequence stratigraphy as well as for all postgraduate students working in petroleum-related scientific fields. It is also intended as a volume of general use for geoscientists entering the petroleum industry, as well as current workers requiring an overview.

Sequence stratigraphy has become a powerful tool in the basin analysis of the North Sea Basin, and will continue to play an important role in the maximization of the remaining hydrocarbon potential of the region, whilst also supporting the energy transition in carbon capture and storage projects with Jurassic storage units. This Memoir provides a long-awaited, comprehensive documentation of Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous sequence stratigraphy of the region (UK, Norway, Denmark and adjacent areas). The volume is amply illustrated by numerous well log displays, core images, seismic lines, chronostratigraphic diagrams and outcrop photographs. Individual chapters discuss the historical usage of sequence stratigraphy in the North Sea Jurassic, sequence stratigraphic concepts and models, application in hydrocarbon field development, definition of stratigraphic traps, well sequence interpretation methodology and controls on sequence development. To complete the volume there are further chapters on North Sea Jurassic lithostratigraphy and its relation to sequence stratigraphy, and descriptions of the biozones used to characterize and correlate the sequences.

An editorial by Wanless (1982), entitled "Sea level is rising - so what?", tells the case of an executive editor of a major city newspaper, who, when confronted with evi dence for a recent sea-level rise, replied: "That just means the ocean is six inches deeper, doesn't it?". Whether his "so what?" attitude was real or put on to dike a threat of sensation, there is at present a wide and deepening interest in ongoing and future global sea-level change. This interest has grown along with the concern over global warming due to increasing levels of C02 and trace gases. A stage has been reached where investigators of climat- sea-level relationships call for long-term measurement programmes for ice-volume changes (using satellite altimetry) and changes in temperature and salinity of the oceans (ther mal expansion). This manual, however, is primarily concerned with sea level changes in the past, mainly since the end of the last glaciation. Its major objective is to help answer the ques tion: "how?", which, of course, is little else but to assist in the gathering of fuel for the burning question: "why?" Good fuel, hopefully, for the less smoke and ashes, and the more heat and light produced by that fire, the better scientists are enabled to develop a quantitative under standing of past, and hence of future, sea-level changes on different spatial and temporal scales.