Outline of Historical Development of Geochemistry

Abstract

Prior to 1905 geologists, chemists, and other scientists had established estimates for the chemical composition of many rocks, minerals, and waters. A major and lasting contribution to the then infant science of geochemistry was made by the American geochemist F. W. Clarke (1847–1934) who collected, classified, and synthesized this information in his classic book The Data of Geochemistry, originally published in 1908. So well did he complete his task that the book went through five editions in his lifetime, and the last was published sixteen years after the first (Clarke, 1924). This source of geochemical information has been used as a starting point for training generations of geochemists and is still quoted as a reference.

“Modern geochemistry studies the distribution and amounts of chemical elements in minerals, ores, rocks, soils, waters and the atmosphere and the circulation of elements in nature, on the basis of their atoms and ions.”

V. M. Goldschmidt, Geochemistry, Alex. Muir, ed. (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1954), p. 1.