Download Branches of Earth Sciences

Branches of Earth Sciences
Climatologists – study the climate – the seasonal and longer-term variations on the temperature
and moisture in the lower atmosphere across the world.
Geochemists – study the chemical composition of the Earth’s crust, its oceans, and its atmosphere.
Geologists – study the Earth’s origin and the structures and composition of its layers.
Geomorphologists – study the forms and formation of land features such as ocean basins and
mountain ranges.
Meteorologists – study and attempt to predict day-to-day variations in the weather. They measure
and forecast conditions in the lower atmosphere, such as temperature, rainfall, and wind speed.
Mineralogists – are geologists who study crystalline minerals and ores.
Oceanographers - study marine life and the physical and chemical conditions in the oceans and on
the seabed.
Paleontologists – study the structure, evolution, environment, and distribution of ancient organisms
by examining their fossilized remains. Paleobiologists study animal fossils, paleobotanists study plant
fossils, and paleoclimatologists study the climate of the past.
Petrologists – study the origins and structures of rocks.
Planetologists – examine and make comparisons between planets.
Sedimentologists – are geologists who study rocks formed from silt and sandy deposits.
Stratigraphers – study layers of rock and how they relate to one another.
Key Dates in Earth Science
B.C.
c.235
Eratosthenes – a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician – calculates the Earth’s
circumference from shadows cast at different latitudes at midday.
c.5
Greek geographer Strabo proposes frigid, temperate, and tropical climate zones.
A.D.
c.30
Strabo suggest that there might be unknown continents.
79
Roman writer Pliny the Younger describes the erution of Vesuvius that caused the destruction
of Pompeii.
132
Chinese invent first seismograph – finely balanced metal balls that fall if the ground shakes.
1086
Chinese engineer Shen Kua outlines the principles of erosion, sedimentation, and uplift
processes.
1517
Italian scholar Girolamo Fracastoro suggests that fossils are the remains of creatures left by
the biblical flood in the story of Noah’s ark.
1546
German metallurgist Georgius Agricola first uses the term “fossil” for the rocklike remains of
plants and animals.
1600
British physician William Gilbert proposes that the Earth is like a giant magnet.
1735
British meteorologist George Hadley uses mathematics and physics to explain how the Earth’s
spin affects trade winds.
1785
British geologist James Hutton proposes that the Earth’s features form through processes,
such as sedimentation and volcanic activity that take place over long periods of time.
1795
French anatomist Georges Cuvier identifies a set of fossilized bones as belonging to a giant
marine reptile.
1811
British teenager Mary Anning and her family discover and collect fossils of the first known
Ichthyosaurus sample.
1822
Iguanodon is identified.
1825
Cuvier proposes that species become extinct as a result of catastrophic events.
1830
British geologist Charles Lyell suggests that the Earth is hundreds of millions of years old.
1840
Swiss-born naturalist Louis Agassiz proposes that most of the Earth was once covered by ice.
1859
British scientist Charles Darwin publishes theory of evolution.
1896
Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius shows that carbon dioxide in air helps trap heat in the
Earth’s atmosphere.
1906
Irish geologist Richard Oldham finds evidence of the Earth’s core in records of seismic waves.
1915
German meteorologist Alfred Wegener publishes a theory that continents are in motion.
1925
Echo soundings reveal the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
1935
US seismologist Charles Richter devises a scale for reporting the strengths of earthquakes.
1938
Live coelacanth, a fish thought to have been extinct for 50 million years, found off
Madagascar.
1965
Canadian geophysicist Tuzo Wilson explains how the plates on the ocean floor move.
1981
Luis Alvarez and his son Walter propose that a giant meteorite impact killed the dinosaurs.