Historical Development of Biogeochemistry

As has been mentioned above, the basic concepts of biogeochemistry are focused on the assessment of life phenomena and the activity of living matter in the migration and transformation of chemical elements in various spheres of the Earth. Undoubtedly, many scientists have contributed through their selfless labor to the development and acceptance of new ideas in biogeochemistry. However, the truth is also that the most wonderful discoveries and achievements were linked to a few names of remarkable individuals who excelled not only as prominent scientists, but also as brilliant and exceptional persons. 

The scientific works of Lavoisier developed the idea that the relationship between organisms and the atmospheric gases is of exceptional importance for the chemistry of life. This problem remained a major concern for researchers through the beginning of 

At the turn of the 19 and 20 centuries, the visible frontiers between the traditional natural sciences like chemistry, geology, and biology showed a tendency to carry out new interdisciplinary research and to create new sciences. The genetic soil science that has arisen in the 1880s in Russia was in fact a precursor to the said tendency. 

The other scientific direction that was developed in the 19 century was geochemistry. Geochemistry is a branch of chemistry that focuses its attention not on the chemical species occurring in Nature, but rather on their constitutive elements and proportions thereof. This means that the proportion of its constituent chemical elements can characterize any material object. The geochemical approach allows researchers to compare and correlate diverse natural bodies and processes. 

In Russia, V.I. Vernadsky (1863-1945) conducted mineralogical research at Moscow University. In studying minerals genesis, he eventually came to the idea that the natural processes of mineral formation should be evaluated at an atomic level. Subsequently, he advanced the basic principles of geochemistry concerned with the migration of chemical elements, the role of isomorphism in the distribution of elements over the Earth s crust, the forms of occurrence of chemical elements and their dispersal. 

---