The twelve contributions in this volume represent the results of a ten year interdisciplinary workshop on "desert margins" - concerned with the geomorphological, geochemica, mineralogical, sedimentological, soil scientific characterisation of (semi-) deserts in Spain, Africa, Arabia and China.

Introduction: The importance of desert margins as indicators of global climatic flucutations.- The geochemistry of play-like sediments as a tool for the reconstruction of Holocene environmetanl conditions.- Environmental changes in the Central Sahara during the Holocene.- Genesis and paleo-ecological interpretation of swamp ore deposits at Sahara paleo-lakes of East Niger.- Fulgurites as palaeoclimatic indicators - the proof of fulgurite fragments in sand samples.- Alluvial loss in the Central Sinai, Egypt, origin and paleoclimatological consideration.- The reconstruction of palaeoclimatological changes from mineralogical and geochemical compositions of loess and aluvial loess profiles.- Geochemical implications for changing dust supply by the Indian Monsoon system to the Arabian Sea during the last glacier cycle.- Little Ice Age climatic fluctuations in the Namib Desert, Namibia and adjacent areas.- The transition from last glacial maximum to Holocene altithermal enviroments in the Monsoonal influenced Namibia - preliminary chronlogy, based on optical dated sediments.- Aeolian sedimentation in arid and semi-arid environments of Western Mongolia.- Ostracod ecology of alluvial loess deposits in an eastern Tian Shan palaeo lake (NW China).- Critical remarks on the interpretation and publication of physical age data and on the problem of teleconnections in the comparison of global climatic events.