The material of several chapters has been deeply revised and rewritten for better intelligibility and to account for some major recent scientific developments. Many figures have been redrawn. I stuck to the black-and-white option to make it easier for teachers to distribute photocopied material for educational purpose: with due credit, I will gladly provide the figures as eps files that can be dressed with colors for classes. New chapters have been added, one on stable isotope fractionation, one on biogeochemistry, and one on paleoenvironments; and existing chapters have been complemented with new material. Overall, the new edition is 50 percent longer than the first one.

Although I used graphic analogies whenever I thought it could spare the reader a difficult mathematical derivation without losing the substance of basic concepts, some of this new material will certainly be felt as a turn-off and I apologize for that. Boxes have been added for very specific material, such as the derivation of some equations, common misconceptions, or more anecdotal material, all of which can be left out without interrupting the main flow of the presentation. Quoting too much old work is pedantic but we can't really ignore the papers that created the basic concepts we use every day. I have marked as “must read” with a ♠ sign some references which laid the groundwork of entire fields.

Finally, at the end of most chapters I have incorporated an additional section of exercises, which have been found previously only on my website.