Dictionary of Geology and Earth Sciences ebook is available here now.
- Title: A Dictionary of Geology and Earth Sciences
- Editor: Michael Allaby
- Publisher: Oxford
- Pages: 669
Setting intellectual boundaries that would serve to define ‘geology’ has never been simple. As long ago as 1830, in his Principles of Geology, Charles Lyell expressed the view that geologists should be well versed in chemistry, natural philosophy, mineralogy, zoology, comparative anatomy, and botany. For at least a century and a half those who would study the structure and composition of the Earth have had to familiarize themselves with a wide range of scientific disciplines.
Strictly speaking, the word ‘geology’ describes all studies of the Earth. Traditionally, however, ‘geology’ has come to mean the study of rocks.
T. C. Chamberlin used the name ‘Earth sciences’ to embrace astronomy, cosmogony, and cosmology as well as the traditional disciplines, and Alfred Wegener (originally a meteorol ogist) also used it, but it was not until the 1960s that it began to gain a wider currency. Within ten years it was widely accepted, used sometimes in the singular, nowadays commonly in the plural. When, in the late summer of 1985,our friendsat the Oxford University Press invited us to compile a dictionary of terms used in the topics directly related to studies of the Earth, it was clear that it should be a dictionary of ‘Earth sciences’.
We had to begin by defining the term for our own purpose. We examined the way it was used by other authors, assembled a kind of consensus, and determined that our dictionary should include terms from climatology, meteorology, economic geology, engineering geology, geochemistry, geochronology, geomorphology, geophysics, hydrology, mineralogy, oceanography, palaeoclimatology, palaeoecology, palaeogeography, palaeontology, pedology, petrology, the philosophy and history of the Earth sciences including brief biographical note so important figures, planetary geology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, structural geology, tectonics, and volcanology.
The task of a dictionary is descriptive, not prescriptive. It records words and expressions that are in current use and explains the meanings sttached to them, but it does not impose those meanings or seek to dictate what a correct usage should be. As recorders, we express no opinions. We would emphasize that the book is meant to be used as a dictionary. In no sense is it intended to be a textbook in its own right.