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Earth science (also known as geoscience, the geosciences or the Earth Sciences), is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. It is arguably a special case in planetary science, being the only known life-bearing planet. There are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth science. The major historic disciplines use physics, mathematics, chemistry, and biology to build a quantitative understanding of the principal areas or spheres of the Earth system: In the West, from antiquity up to the time of the Scientific Revolution, inquiry into the workings of the universe was known as natural philosophy, and those engaged in it were known as natural philosophers. ...
Download high resolution version (703x1050, 51 KB)Linus Pauling (public domain from [1]) This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ...
The sociology and philosophy of science, as well as the entire field of science studies, have in the 20th century been preoccupied with the question of large-scale patterns and trends in the development of science, and asking questions about how science works both in a philosophical and practical sense. ...
The historiography of science is the study of the history of science (often overlapping with the history of technology, history of medicine, and history of mathematics), generally in an academic context as part of the discipline of the history of science and technology (HST), history and philosophy of science (HPS...
A pseudoscience is any body of knowledge purported to be scientific or supported by science but which fails to comply with the scientific method. ...
The Ptolemaic system of celestial motion, from Harmonia Macrocosmica, 1661. ...
In prehistoric times, advice and knowledge was passed from generation to generation in an oral tradition. ...
The Middle Ages: Western World Map of Medieval Universities See Also: Medieval medicine, Medieval philosophy With the loss of the Western Roman Empire, much of Europe lost contact with the knowledge of the past. ...
In the history of science, the scientific revolution was the period that roughly began with the discoveries of Kepler, Galileo, and others at the dawn of the 17th century, and ended with the publication of the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687 by Isaac Newton. ...
Astronomy is probably the oldest of the natural sciences, dating back to antiquity, with its origins in the religious practices of pre-history: vestiges of these are still found in astrology, a discipline long interwoven with astronomy, and not completely separate from it until about 1750‑1800 in the Western...
The history of biology dates as far back as the rise of various civilization as classic philosophers did their own ways of biology as a system of understanding life. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Portrait of Monsieur Lavoisier and his Wife, by Jacques-Louis David The history of chemistry may be said to begin with the distinction of chemistry from alchemy by Robert Boyle in his work The Skeptical Chymist, which was written after a long and tearfilled talk with...
Ecology is generally spoken of as a new science, really not coming into prominence before the middle of the 20th Century. ...
Jump to: navigation, search The growth of physics has brought not only fundamental changes in ideas about the material world, mathematics and philosophy, but also, through technology, a transformation of society. ...
Jump to: navigation, search The term economics was coined around 1870 and popularized by Alfred Marshall, as a substitute for the earlier term political economy which has been used through the 18th-19th centuries, with Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx as its main thinkers and which today is...
Efforts to describe and explain the human language faculty have been undertaken throughout recorded history. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Antecedents of political science While the study of politics is first found in the Western tradition in Ancient Greece, political science is a late arrival in terms of social sciences. ...
The history of psychology consists of a prescientific and a scientific epoch. ...
Sociology is a relatively new academic discipline among other social sciences including economics, political science, anthropology, and psychology. ...
The wheel was invented circa 4000 BC, and has become one of the worlds most famous and most useful technologies. ...
Agronomy today is very different from what it was before about 1950. ...
The History of materials science is rooted in the history of the Earth and the culture of the peoples of the Earth. ...
All human societies have medical beliefs that provide explanations for, and responses to, birth, death, and disease. ...
The Timeline below shows the date of publication of major scientific theories. ...
The timeline below shows the date of publication of major scientific experiments. ...
Earth, also known as the Earth or Terra, is the third planet outward from the Sun. ...
Planetary science, also known as planetology or planetary astronomy, is the science of planets and the solar system, and incorporates an interdisciplinary approach drawing from diverse sciences. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Life is a multi-faceted concept. ...
Reductionism in philosophy describes a number of related, contentious theories that hold, very roughly, that the nature of complex things can always be reduced to (explained by) simpler or more fundamental things. ...
Holism (from holon, a Greek word meaning entity) is the idea that the properties of a system cannot be determined or explained by the sum of its components alone. ...
Discipline is any training intended to produce a specific character or pattern of behaviour, especially training that produces moral or mental development in a particular direction. ...
Since antiquity, people have tried to understand the behavior of matter: why unsupported objects drop to the ground, why different materials have different properties, and so forth. ...
Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Mathematics Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mathematics Look up Mathematics on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikimedia Commons has more media related to: Mathematics Bogomolny, Alexander: Interactive Mathematics Miscellany and Puzzles. ...
Chemistry (in Greek: χημεία) is the science of matter that deals with the composition, structure, and properties of substances and with the transformations that they undergo. ...
Main articles: Life The most salient example of biological universality is that all living things share a common carbon-based biochemistry and in particular pass on their characteristics via genetic material, which is based on nucleic acids such as DNA and which uses a common genetic code with only minor...
Earth's spheres However, given the numerous interactions between the spheres many modern fields take an interdisciplinary approach and thus do not sit comfortably in this scheme: Jump to: navigation, search Geology (from Greek γη- (ge-, the earth) and λογος (logos, word, reason)) is the science and study of the Earth, its composition, structure, physical properties, history, and the processes that shape it. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Our earth is composed of three main types of rock, each having been formed in its own special way. ...
Jump to: navigation, search The lithospheres poo (from the Greek for rocky sphere) is the solid outermost shell of a rocky planet. ...
Earth, also known as the Earth or Terra, is the third planet outward from the Sun. ...
Earth cutaway from core to exosphere. ...
Earth cutaway from core to exosphere. ...
Geophysics, the study of the earth by quantitative physical methods, especially by seismic reflection and refraction, gravity, magnetic, electrical, electromagnetic, and radioactivity methods. ...
The field of geochemistry involves study of the chemical composition of the Earth and other planets, chemical processes and reactions that govern the composition of rocks and soils, and the cycles of matter and energy that transport the Earths chemical components in time and space, and their interaction with...
A paleontologist carefully chips rock from a column of dinosaur vertebrae. ...
Petrology is a field of geology which focuses on the study of rocks and the conditions by which they form. ...
Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, is basically the study of rock layers and layering (stratification). ...
Sedimentology is the branch of geology concerned with understanding the characteristics of sedimentary rocks originally deposited in sedimentary basins. ...
This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...
Limnology is a discipline that concerns the study of in-land waters (both saline and fresh), specifically lakes, ponds and rivers (both natural and manmade), including their biological, physical, chemical, and hydrological aspects. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Water covers 70% of the Earths surface. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Water (from the Old English word wæter; c. ...
Hydrosphere (Greek hydro- means water) in physical geography, describes the collective mass of water found on, under, and over the surface of a planet. ...
Hydrogeology (hydro- meaning water, and -geology meaning the study of rocks) is the part of hydrology that deals with the distribution and movement of groundwater in the soil and rocks of the Earths crust (commonly in aquifers). ...
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Oceanography. ...
Chemical oceanography is the study of the behaviour of the chemical elements within the Earths oceans. ...
Main articles: Life The most salient example of biological universality is that all living things share a common carbon-based biochemistry and in particular pass on their characteristics via genetic material, which is based on nucleic acids such as DNA and which uses a common genetic code with only minor...
Atmospheric sciences is an umbrella term for the study of the atmosphere, its processes, the effects other systems have on the atmosphere, and the effects of the atmosphere on these other systems. ...
A gas is one of the phases of matter. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Layers of Atmosphere (NOAA) Earths tmosphere is the layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth and retained by the Earths gravity. ...
Lateral moraine on a glacier joining the Gorner Glacier, Zermatt, Switzerland. ...
A natural, 4 tonne, block of ice on a beach in Iceland Icicles Ice is the solid form of water. ...
The cryosphere is frozen water in the form of snow, permanently frozen ground (permafrost), floating ice, and glaciers. ...
Interdisciplinary fields - Biogeochemistry follows the cycling of elements through the spheres mediated by biological and geological processes, and especially their distribution and fluxes between reservoirs.
- Mineralogy and Mineral Physics consider the rock-forming minerals on the atomic length-scale, both as part of geosystems and increasingly with an eye towards technological applications (for instance, as catalysts or exploiting their potential ferroelectric properties); in this, there is extensive and increasing overlap with solid-state physics, crystal chemistry and Materials Science.
Furthermore, other modern disciplines known collectively as Earth system science approach the entire Earth as a system in its own right, which evolves as a result of positive and negative feedback between constituent systems: The field of biogeochemistry involves scientific study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the hydrosphere, the pedosphere, the atmosphere, and the lithosphere), and the cycles of matter and energy that transport the Earths chemical...
Mineralogy is an earth science that involves the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals. ...
A catalyst (Greek: καταλύτης) is a substance that accelerates the rate of a chemical reaction, at some temperature, but without itself being transformed or consumed by the reaction (see also catalysis). ...
In physics, the ferroelectric effect is an electrical phenomenon whereby certain ionic crystals may exhibit a spontaneous dipole moment. ...
Solid-state physics, the largest branch of condensed matter physics, is the study of rigid matter, or solids. ...
The Materials Science Tetrahedron Materials science is a multidisciplinary field focusing on functional solids, whether the function served is structural, electronic, thermal, chemical, magnetic, optical, or some combination of these. ...
Paleoclimatology is the study of climate change taken on the scale of the entire history of the earth. ...
Sediment is any particulate matter that can be transported by fluid flow and which eventually is deposited as a layer of solid particles on the bed or bottom of a body of water or other liquid. ...
An ice core is a tube of ice removed from an ice sheet. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Earth science (also known as geoscience, the geosciences or the Earth Sciences), is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. ...
Systems thinking involves the use of various techniques to study systems of many kinds. ...
Positive feedback is a type of feedback. ...
Negative feedback is a type of feedback, during which a system responds so as to reverse the direction of change. ...
- Meteorology describes, explains and predicts the weather based on the interaction of principally the ocean and atmosphere.
- Climatology describes and explains the climate in terms of the interaction of the litho-, hydro-, atmo-, cryo-, and bio- spheres.
- Gaia theories explain the behaviour of the Earth system in terms of the influence of the biosphere.
Like all other scientists, earth scientists apply the scientific method: formulate hypotheses after observation of and gathering data about natural phenomena and then test those hypotheses. In earth science, data usually plays a critical role in testing and formulating hypotheses. The systems approach, enabled by the combined use of computer models as hypotheses tested by global satellite and ship-board data, is increasingly giving scientists the ability to explain the past and possible future behaviour of the Earth system. Satellite image of Hurricane Hugo Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Composite satellite image showing the progress of a hurricane weather system approaching the East Coast of the United States Weather comprises all the various phenomena that occur in the atmosphere of a planet. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Climatology is the study of climate, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences. ...
Gaia theory is a class of scientific models of the geo-biosphere in which life as a whole fosters and maintains suitable conditions for itself by helping to create an environment on Earth suitable for its continuity. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Scientific methods or processes are considered fundamental to the scientific investigation and acquisition of new knowledge based upon physical evidence by scientific communities. ...
Systems thinking involves the use of various techniques to study systems of many kinds. ...
Earth observation satellites are satellites specifically designed to observe Earth from orbit, similar to reconnaissance satellites but intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, meteorology, map making etc. ...
Partial list of the major Earth Science topics
Geology Cataclysmic geology is the study of the unusual and rare geologic events that have profound effects on the planet and often happen very rapidly or instantaneously. ...
Economic geology is concerned with earth materials that can be utilized for economic and/or industrial purposes. ...
Engineering Geology is the application of the science of geology to the understanding of geologic phenomena and the engineering solution of geologic hazards and other geologic problems for society. ...
Environmental geology, like hydrogeology, is a multidisciplinary field of applied science and is closely related to engineering geology and somewhat related to environmental geography. ...
Gemology (gemmology outside the United States) is the science, art and profession of identifying and evaluating gemstones. ...
The field of geochemistry involves study of the chemical composition of the Earth and other planets, chemical processes and reactions that govern the composition of rocks and soils, and the cycles of matter and energy that transport the Earths chemical components in time and space, and their interaction with...
Jump to: navigation, search Geochronology is the science of determining the age of rocks, fossils, and sediments. ...
Hydrogeology (hydro- meaning water, and -geology meaning the study of rocks) is the part of hydrology that deals with the distribution and movement of groundwater in the soil and rocks of the Earths crust (commonly in Aquifers). ...
The cause of Earths magnetic field (the surface magnetic field) is not known for certain, but is possibly explained by dynamo theory. ...
Geomicrobiology is a science that combines geology and microbiology, and studies the interaction of microscopic organisms with their inorganic environment, such as in sedimentary rocks. ...
Surface of the Earth Geomorphology is the study of landforms, including their origin and evolution, and the processes that shape them. ...
Geophysics, the study of the earth by quantitative physical methods, especially by seismic reflection and refraction, gravity, magnetic, electrical, electromagnetic, and radioactivity methods. ...
Geostatistics applies the theories of stochastic processes and statistical inference to geographic phenomena. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Historical geology is the use of the principles of geology to reconstruct and understand the history of the Earth. ...
Mantle plumes are a geological phenomenon originally proposed by W. Jason Morgan in 1971. ...
Micropaleontology, the study of microfossils, is a branch of paleontology. ...
Jump to: navigation, search The El Chino Mine located near Silver City, New Mexico is an open-pit copper mine Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually (but not always) from an ore body, vein, or (coal) seam. ...
A paleontologist carefully chips rock from a column of dinosaur vertebrae. ...
Pollen under microscope Palynology is the science that studies contemporary and fossil palynomorphs, including pollen, spores, dinoflagellate cysts, acritarchs, chitinozoans and scolecodonts, together with particulate organic matter (POM) and kerogen found in sedimentary rocks and sediments. ...
Pedology (pÄ›dÇ’lÅgy), (from Russian: pedologiya, from the Greek pedon = soil, earth), is the study of soils and soil formation. ...
Petroleum geology is a term used to refer to the specific set of geological disciplines that are applied to the search for hydrocarbons (oil exploration). ...
Petrology is a field of geology which focuses on the study of rocks and the conditions by which they form. ...
Definition Physical geodesy is the study of the physical properties of the gravity field of the Earth, the geopotential, with a view to their application in geodesy. ...
Astrogeology is the scientific discipline concerned with the geology of the celestial bodies such as the planets and their moons, asteroids, comets, and meteorites. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Plate tectonics (from the Greek word for one who constructs, τεκτων, tekton) is a theory of geology developed to explain the phenomenon of continental drift, and is currently the theory accepted by the vast majority of scientists working in this area. ...
Quaternary geology is that part of geology that is concerned with the study of the Quaternary, the youngest geological period. ...
Sedimentology is the branch of geology concerned with understanding the characteristics of sedimentary rocks originally deposited in sedimentary basins. ...
Seismology (from the Greek seismos = earthquake and logos = word) is the scientific study of earthquakes and the movement of waves through the Earth. ...
Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, is basically the study of rock layers and layering (stratification). ...
Structural geology is the study of deformation of rock including breaking (fracturing and faulting) and bending or folding. ...
The tectonic plates of the world were mapped in the second half of the 20th century. ...
Volcanology (also spelled vulcanology) is the study of volcanos, lava, magma and related geological phenomena. ...
Oceanography It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Oceanography. ...
Chemical oceanography is the study of the behaviour of the chemical elements within the Earths oceans. ...
Oceanography (from Ocean + Greek γράφειν = write), also called oceanology and marine science is the study of the earths oceans and their interlinked ecosystems and chemical and physical processes. ...
Geography Human geography, also known as anthropogeography, is the most boring subject devised by mankind. ...
Palaeogeography is the study of the ancient geography of the Earths surface. ...
Physical geography, is an attempt by geographers to make geography less boring. ...
Limnology Limnology is a discipline that concerns the study of in-land waters (both saline and fresh), specifically lakes, ponds and rivers (both natural and manmade), including their biological, physical, chemical, and hydrological aspects. ...
Glaciology Lateral moraine on a glacier joining the Gorner Glacier, Zermatt, Switzerland. ...
Atmospheric Science Atmospheric sciences is an umbrella term for the study of the atmosphere, its processes, the effects other systems have on the atmosphere, and the effects of the atmosphere on these other systems. ...
Systems or multidisciplinary Jump to: navigation, search Climatology is the study of climate, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Earth science (also known as geoscience, the geosciences or the Earth Sciences), is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. ...
Mineralogy is an earth science that involves the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals. ...
Gaia theory is a class of scientific models of the geo-biosphere in which life as a whole fosters and maintains suitable conditions for itself by helping to create an environment on Earth suitable for its continuity. ...
Satellite image of Hurricane Hugo Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting. ...
Paleoclimatology is the study of climate change taken on the scale of the entire history of the earth. ...
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