In the Preface to the first edition of this book, nitions and explanations of a number of import- published in 1983, I explained my reasons for ant stratigraphic and structural concepts that writing the book as follows. need to be understood in the early stages of 'There are already a number of excellent books learning structural geology from geological covering the various aspects of Structural Geo- maps. It must be stressed, however, that geolo- logy. Among these are works by Hobbs, Means gical map interpretation must be carried out as a and Williams, Jaeger and Cook, Price, Ramsay, complement to any theoretical treatment of the and Turner and Weiss, all of which I have used subject, in order to appreciate structure in three extensively in preparing this book and have listed dimensions. therein as further reading. However, these text- I have also made numerous corrections and improvements to the text and also to the illus- books are rather advanced for many students commencing the study of geology, and for many trations, many of which have been replaced. In years I have been aware of the lack of a suitable doing this, I have incorporated many helpful elementary book which I could recommend to suggestions from colleagues and reviewers. In beginners.