This book covers some of the representative examples of stone heritage in East and Southeast Asia (the CCOP region) regardless of their size, scale and age; miniature or gigantic; from ancient to modern. The editors hope that the book will help readers to learn about the geological background of the heritage of the CCOP region and extend their interest in the local geology and eventually the history of our planet.

We also expect that this book will be a contribution to the GHSR project under the IUGS, which was proposed at the 33rd International Geological Congress (IGC) in Oslo, Norway in 2008 and whose task group, HSTG, was formally established within the IUGS on the occasion of the 2012 IGC meeting in Brisbane, Australia. The project aims to “facilitate formal designation of those natural stone types that have achieved widespread recognition in human culture” (Cooper et al., 2013*).

As the designation “heritage stone”, similar to that of world heritage, will provide natural stone resources with international recognition, it will prevent them from depletion, and enhance the local stone industry. The collaboration with the GHSR project is expected to bring benefits to CCOP, which seeks to improve the regional quality of life with earth scientific knowledge and technology. It will help to get its people interested in local geology using the material familiar to them, i.e. stones, and encourage local stone industry by obtaining international recognition.

This book is of 246 pages, and available both in printed and digital forms.  The 22MB PDF file of the book can be downloaded from http://www.ccop.or.th/download/pub/ccop_stone_book_low_res.pdf