The author addresses the principles of the subject from the viewpoint of modern processes, emphasising a general science narrative approach in the main text, with quantitative background derived in enabling ‘cookie’ appendices. The book ends with an innovative chapter dealing with how sedimentology is currently informing a variety of cognate disciplines, from the timing and extent tectonic uplift to variations in palaeoclimate. Each chapter concludes with a detailed guide to key further reading leading to a large bibliography of over 2500 entries. The book is designed to reach an audience of senior undergraduate and graduate students and interested academic and industry professionals.