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History of Geochemistry

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Geochemistry

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Definition

Geochemistry grew out of the Renaissance arts of alchemy and metallurgy . Over much of that long past, geochemistry was intimately intertwined with chemistry itself, evolving into a distinct subfield of both chemistry and earth sciences only with the dawn of the twentieth century. It now holds a central role in understanding the Earth, its neighboring planets, and their evolution.

Early Roots in Alchemy and Chemistry

The term “geochemistry” was coined in 1838 by the German-Swiss chemist Christian Friedrich Schönbein , a professor of chemistry and physics at the University of Basel and better known as the discoverer of ozone, who wrote, “In a word, a comparative geochemistry ought to be launched… before the mystery of the genesis of our planets and their inorganic matter may be revealed” (Krough 2001). Revealing the “mystery of the genesis of our planets and their inorganic matter” remains a remarkably accurate description of what geochemistry has become, with qualification...

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  1. Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    William M. White

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  1. Department of Earth, Cornell University Department of Earth, Ithaca, New York, USA

    William M. White

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White, W.M. (2017). History of Geochemistry. In: White, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geochemistry. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39193-9_295-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39193-9_295-1

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