Introduction

Abstract

Until recently, investigations of the sedimentation processes were restricted to the study of marine and continental deposits within continental sequences. Only during the last decades, geologists started investigations of the seas and oceans which occupy the largest part of the Earth’s surface (about 2/3). The latter represent a natural laboratory of diverse sedimentation processes occurring throughout the world — from poles to equator. Besides significant expanding of the spread of work and appearance of possibilities to introduce the com-parative-lithological method, new original instruments and methods have been involved into the study, thus resulting in development of new lines of investigations of sedimentation process and geochemistry.