Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical,

physical Physical may refer to: *Physical examination In a physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a medical condition. It generally co ...

, geological, and

biological Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary in ...

processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the cryosphere, the hydrosphere, the pedosphere, the

atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...

, and the

lithosphere A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust (geology), crust and the portion of the upper mantle (geology), mantle that behaves elastically on time sca ...

). In particular, biogeochemistry is the study of

biogeochemical cycle A biogeochemical cycle (or more generally a cycle of matter) is the pathway by which a chemical substance cycles (is turned over or moves through) the biotic and the abiotic compartments of Earth. The biotic compartment is the biosphere and the ...

s, the cycles of chemical elements such as carbon and nitrogen, and their interactions with and incorporation into living things transported through earth scale biological systems in space and time. The field focuses on chemical cycles which are either driven by or influence biological activity. Particular emphasis is placed on the study of carbon, nitrogen,

sulfur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...

, iron, and phosphorus cycles. Biogeochemistry is a systems science closely related to

systems ecology Systems ecology is an interdisciplinary field of ecology, a subset of Earth system science, that takes a holism, holistic approach to the study of ecological systems, especially ecosystems. Systems ecology can be seen as an application of general ...

History

Early History

Early Greeks established some of the core ideas of biogeochemistry, such as nature consisting of cycles.

17th - 19th Centuries

Eighteenth century agricultural interest in soil chemistry led to better understanding of nutrients and their connection to biochemical processes. This relationship between the cycles of organic life and their chemical products was further expanded upon by Dumas and Boussingault in a 1844 paper that is considered an important milestone in the development of biogeochemistry. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck first used the term '' biosphere'' in 1802, and others continued to develop the concept throughout the 19th century. Early climate research by scientists like

Charles Lyell Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, (14 November 1797 – 22 February 1875) was a Scottish geologist who demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining the earth's history. He is best known as the author of ''Principles of Geolo ...

John Tyndall John Tyndall FRS (; 2 August 1820 – 4 December 1893) was a prominent 19th-century Irish physicist. His scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he made discoveries in the realms of infrared radiation and the p ...

, and

Joseph Fourier Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (; ; 21 March 1768 – 16 May 1830) was a French people, French mathematician and physicist born in Auxerre and best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series, which eventually developed into Fourier an ...

began to link glaciation, weathering, and climate.

20th Century

The founder of modern biogeochemistry is considered to be Vladimir Vernadsky, a Russian and

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

scientist whose 1926 book ''The Biosphere'', in the tradition of Mendeleev, formulated a physics of the Earth as a living whole. Vernadsky distinguished three spheres, where a sphere was a concept similar to the concept of a

phase-space In dynamical system theory, a phase space is a space in which all possible states of a system are represented, with each possible state corresponding to one unique point in the phase space. For mechanical systems, the phase space usuall ...

. He observed that each sphere had its own laws of evolution, and that the higher spheres modified and dominated the lower: # Abiotic sphere – all the non-living energy and material processes # Biosphere – the life processes that live within the abiotic sphere # Nöesis or

noosphere The noosphere (alternate spelling noösphere) is a philosophical concept developed and popularized by the Russian-Ukrainian Soviet biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, and the French philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Vernads ...

– the sphere of human cognitive process Human activities (e.g., agriculture and industry) modify the biosphere and abiotic sphere. In the contemporary environment, the amount of influence humans have on the other two spheres is comparable to a geological force (see Anthropocene). The American limnologist and

geochemist Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing the ...

G. Evelyn Hutchinson George Evelyn Hutchinson (January 30, 1903 – May 17, 1991) was a British ecologist sometimes described as the "father of modern ecology." He contributed for more than sixty years to the fields of limnology, systems ecology, radiation ecolog ...

is credited with outlining the broad scope and principles of this new field. More recently, the basic elements of the discipline of biogeochemistry were restated and popularized by the British scientist and writer,

James Lovelock James Ephraim Lovelock (26 July 1919 – 26 July 2022) was an English independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating sys ...

, under the label of the ''

Gaia Hypothesis The Gaia hypothesis (), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that help ...

''. Lovelock emphasized a concept that life processes regulate the Earth through

feedback Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled ...

mechanisms to keep it habitable. The research of

Manfred Schidlowski Manfred Schidlowski (13 November 1933 – 3 October 2012) was a German Professor of Geochemistry at the Max-Planck-Institut for Chemistry (Otto-Hahn-Institut) in Mainz. His research was concerned with the biochemistry of the Early Earth with a foc ...

was concerned with the biochemistry of the

Early Earth The early Earth is loosely defined as Earth in its first one billion years, or gigayear (Ga, 109y). The “early Earth” encompasses approximately the first gigayear in the evolution of our planet, from its initial formation in the young Solar Sy ...

Biogeochemical cycles

Biogeochemical cycle A biogeochemical cycle (or more generally a cycle of matter) is the pathway by which a chemical substance cycles (is turned over or moves through) the biotic and the abiotic compartments of Earth. The biotic compartment is the biosphere and the ...

s are the pathways by which chemical substances

cycle Cycle, cycles, or cyclic may refer to: Anthropology and social sciences * Cyclic history, a theory of history * Cyclical theory, a theory of American political history associated with Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. * Social cycle, various cycles in soc ...

(are turned over or moved through) the

biotic Biotics describe living or once living components of a community; for example organisms, such as animals and plants. Biotic may refer to: *Life, the condition of living organisms *Biology, the study of life * Biotic material, which is derived from ...

and the abiotic compartments of Earth. The biotic compartment is the biosphere and the abiotic compartments are the

, hydrosphere and

. There are biogeochemical cycles for chemical elements, such as for calcium, carbon, hydrogen,

mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, selenium, iron and

, as well as molecular cycles, such as for water and silica. There are also macroscopic cycles, such as the rock cycle, and human-induced cycles for synthetic compounds such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). In some cycles there are reservoirs where a substance can remain or be sequestered for a long period of time.Moses, M. (2012
Biogeochemical cycles
. '' Encyclopedia of Earth''.Biogeochemical Cycles
, ''OpenStax'', 9 May 2019. .

Research

Biogeochemistry research groups exist in many universities around the world. Since this is a highly

interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

field, these are situated within a wide range of host disciplines including:

atmospheric sciences Atmospheric science is the study of the Earth's atmosphere and its various inner-working physical processes. Meteorology includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics with a major focus on weather forecasting. Climatology is the study of ...

, biology, ecology, geomicrobiology, environmental chemistry, geology,

oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamic ...

and soil science. These are often bracketed into larger disciplines such as

earth science Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spheres ...

and

environmental science Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical geograp ...

. Many researchers investigate the

s of chemical elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and

, as well as their stable isotopes. The cycles of trace elements such as the

trace metal Trace metals are the metals subset of trace elements; that is, metals normally present in small but measurable amounts in animal and plant cells and tissues and that are a necessary part of nutrition and physiology. Many biometals are trace me ...

s and the

radionuclide A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transfer ...

s are also studied. This research has obvious applications in the exploration for ore deposits and oil, and in remediation of environmental pollution. Some important research fields for biogeochemistry include: * modelling of natural systems * soil and water acidification recovery processes * eutrophication of surface waters * carbon sequestration *

environmental remediation Environmental remediation deals with the removal of pollution or contaminants from environmental media such as soil, groundwater, sediment, or surface water. Remedial action is generally subject to an array of regulatory requirements, and may al ...

* global change * climate change * biogeochemical prospecting for ore deposits * soil chemistry * chemical oceanography

References

Representative books and publications

* Vladimir I. Vernadsky, 2007, Essays on Geochemistry and the Biosphere, tr. Olga Barash, Santa Fe, NM, Synergetic Press, (originally published in Russian in 1924) * Schlesinger, W. H. 1997. Biogeochemistry: An Analysis of Global Change, 2nd edition. Academic Press, San Diego, Calif. . * Schlesinger, W. H., 2005. Biogeochemistry. Vol. 8 in: Treatise on Geochemistry. Elsevier Science. * Vladimir N. Bashkin, 2002, Modern Biogeochemistry. Kluwer, . * Samuel S. Butcher et al. (Eds.), 1992, Global Biogeochemical Cycles. Academic, . * Susan M. Libes, 1992, Introduction to Marine Biogeochemistry. Wiley, . * Dmitrii Malyuga, 1995, Biogeochemical Methods of Prospecting. Springer, . * ''Global Biogeochemical Cycles

A journal published by the American Geophysical Union. * * Woolman, T. A., & John, C. Y., 2013, An Analysis of the Use of Predictive Modeling with Business Intelligence Systems for Exploration of Precious Metals Using Biogeochemical Data. International Journal of Business Intelligence Research (IJBIR), 4(2), 39-53.

''Biogeochemistry''
A journal published by Springer.

External links

International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
{{Authority control Biogeochemistry, Chemical oceanography Limnology Systems ecology