Some Geochemical Principles and Results

Goldschmidt received many honors in his lifetime. The Geological Society of London conferred on him its highest distinction, the Wollaston Medal. It is said that he deeply appreciated the fact that he was elected as one of the fifty foreign members of the Royal Society in London. 

In the 18 century the Empress Catherine II of Russia initiated a search for valuable minerals in the vast Russian Empire. Perhaps this can be seen as the beginning of a tradition, leading to the strong development of geochemistry in both Russia and the Soviet Union in the 20 century. 

After 1917 Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863-1945) became a pioneer and led an essential development of theory and principles within geochemistry. In his classic book Essays on Geochemistry he emphasized the fact that it is important to abandon the old static approach to minerals and instead study the atoms and the pattern of their movement on earth and in the universe. Of course, practical geochemistry continued to be concentrated on creating conditions for the exploitation of raw materials for the mineral and metal industry in Russia. These efforts were successful. 

Vernadsky was also a pioneer in another domain, bio-geochemistry, the science that studies the distribution of elements among plants and animals. This new science inspired A. I. Oparin, who became a leading expert in this field pubhshing his book The Origin of Life on Earth in 1936. 

Other young colleagues of Vernadsky, also internationally known within geochemistry, were A. E. Fersman and A. P. Vinogradov. Fersman, who, like his teacher Vernadsky, died in 1945, published a thorough treatment of geochemistry in four volumes [4.2]. 

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