Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Earth science in Natural Science

Earth science (also known as geoscience, the geosciences or the Earth Sciences), is an all-embracing word for the sciences related to the planet Earth, including geology, geophysics, hydrology, meteorology, physical geography, oceanography, and soil science.

Although mining and precious stones have been human interests right through the history of civilization, their development into the sciences of economic geology and mineralogy did not occur until the 18th century. The learning of the earth, particularly palaeontology, blossomed in the 19th century and the growth of other disciplines like geophysics in the 20th century led to the development of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s, which has had a similar impact on the Earth sciences as the theory of evolution had on biology. Earth sciences nowadays are closely linked to climate research and the petroleum and mineral exploration industries.

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