Sediment accumulation rates are an essential tool for the understanding of processes related to the deposition of organic and inorganic materials in marine and lacustrine environments. Sediment accumulation rates are not only a measure of the speed of deposition, but also represent a very useful tool for further paleoenvironmental reconstructions of climate history or biotic evolution as seen in the fossil record.The present volume provides an invaluable introduction to available strategies for the determination of the speed of sedimentation. It discusses the various methods and related problems, proposes new concepts and introduces selected applications in the form of case studies.