Abstract

This issue of the Journal marks an important event in the history of the Geological Society. It is the first product of the Geological Society Publishing House which was set up by Council last year. The Publishing House will give the Society more control over the production of this Journal, the Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology, the Special Publications, Memoirs, Special Reports and the occasional other publications and it will provide the Society with a greater share of the income from these publications.

To this end, office and warehouse premises have been purchased in the west of England. The address is: Geological Society Publishing House, Unit 7, Brassmill Enterprise Centre, Brassmill Lane, Bath BA1 3JN, and visitors will be welcome. Mr Roger Cooper has been appointed as Publications Manager to be responsible to the Publications Board of the Society for the sales, promotion and technical aspects of publishing and the day-to-day running of the Publishing House. MS Angharad Hills, the Publications Secretary, has moved her office from Burlington House to Bath and all correspondence should be addressed to her there. Now that copy-editing, address- labelling and mailing schedules for the Journal are done on Society premises, publication ‘turn round’ time should be speeded up. At present, the interval from acceptance of a paper to its publication is six to seven months. The review and particularly the revision time has been very variable: from two months to a year or more.

Despite all this, we are sad to be reducing our