The cover image is an original oil painting by Aidan Doyle, based on scenes of actual sampling of ferruginous mine water emerging from an old exploration borehole (evidently never plugged) which was encountered during mining of the 295 Level in the Frazer's Hush workings of Frazer's Grove Mine (County Durham, UK). The mine is described in the paper by Johnson & Younger in this volume. The sampling was undertaken in 1998, before the mine was abandoned and flooded (as described by Johnson & Younger). In the picture, the mine Manager, John Evans, is bending to fill a sample bottle, while Paul Younger is noting pH, conductivity and temperature values of this water in his 1SBN 1-86239-113-0 field notebook. In the bottom right of the picture is the FlygtTM pump which lifted all of the water from this part of the mine to the 310 Level, whence it flowed via the 60 fm Level of Grove Rake Mine to a sump from which it was finally pumped to surface. In this one image, therefore, myriad issues of mine water hydrogeology and geochemistry are captured from a moment in time.