1. The references cited are those used for compiling the entries, with preference generally having been given to more recent work. Inevitably in this volume an overwhelming proportion of the primary literature is in Russian, with a little in Ukrainian and other languages. Although some of this literature will be available through a good library, much of it will not. The principal reason for this is that many of the accounts of Soviet geology were published as monographs by the official Soviet publishing houses, the various academies of science and some universities, and the print runs were generally rather short — perhaps 500. Even many Soviet institutions were unable to obtain copies so that some of these works are very rare indeed outside the former U.S.S.R. The Russian co-authors of this book, working in large geological institutes in Moscow (IGEM and the Vernadsky Institute) and St Petersburg (VSEGEI), were fortunate in having access to large libraries, but also, having worked on alkaline rocks and carbonatites for many years, have large literature collections of their own. Further, between them they have visited, researched upon and mapped many of the occurrences described here and so have been able to give accounts of many of them from first-hand knowledge. In addition to the primary Russian literature there is a large body of material translated into English. Many papers in Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR are published in English in Doklady Earth Science Sections, while material from Geokhimiya is given in translation in Geochemistry International. Translations from a wide spectrum of journals will be found in International Geology Review. When possible the English translation of a paper has been cited rather than the original Russian one. A search has been made of the available translated material for the last 20 years or so and numerous references to this are given. However, the greater proportion of the literature is available only in Russian. A few important books have been translated into English, notably ‘The Lovozero Alkali Massif (Vlasov et al., 1966) and The geochemistry of the Lovozero Alkaline Massif (Gerasimovsky et al., 1968). The book ‘Principal provinces and formations of alkaline rocks’ (Borodin, 1974), which describes numerous occurrences of alkaline rocks in the U.S.S.R., and elsewhere, is probably the only previously published book adopting a similar treatment to the present volumes and as such was of great importance when formulating the present work. Because no English translation was available the Natural History Museum, London, generously financed translation of the U.S.S.R. section of the book by Mrs H. Szabo. Although fewer than half the occurrences now described are to be found in Borodin’s book, his descriptions were a great help to the British co-author. The references in English, in both the author lists at the end of the occurrence descriptions and the full reference lists (to be found at the end of each section), are indicated by an initial asterisk.
2. ARSEN’EV, A.A. 1946. The problem of peralkaline granite from the Transbaikal area. Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, 3
125–7.
3. BELOV, I.V. 1963. A trachybasaltic association from the Transbaikal area. Izdatelstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, Moscow. 371 pp.
4. BOGATIKOV, O.A., RYABCHIKOV, I.D. AND KONONOVA, V.A. et al. 1991. Lamproites. Nauka, Moscow. 302 pp.
5. BORODIN, L.S. 1957. On the type of carbonatitic deposits and their relationship with the massifs of alkaline ultrabasic rocks. Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, 5: 3–16.