Читать книгу Geochemistry - William M. White - Страница 11

Geochemistry is the chemistry of the natural environment and it encompasses the Earth as well as other Solar System bodies, what Antoine Lavoisier described as “the grand laboratory of nature.” As the etymology of the word implies, the field of geochemistry is somehow a marriage of the fields of chemistry and geology, or more broadly, earth science. But just how are chemistry and geology combined within geochemistry; what is the relationship between them? Perhaps the best explanation would be to state that in geochemistry, we use the tools of chemistry to understand the Earth and how it works. The Earth is part of a closely related family of heavenly bodies, our Solar System, that formed more or less simultaneously. To fully understand the Earth and how it became habitable, we need to understand that formation. Hence, the realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth to encompass the entire Solar System.