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Article: Earth Science
- Article from:
- The Gale Encyclopedia of Science
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Earth Science
Earth, air, and water
Resources
As befits a dynamic Earth, the study of earth science embraces a multitude of subdisciplines. At the heart of earth science is the study of geology. Literally meaning
“
to study the Earth,
”
traditional geological studies of rocks, minerals, and local formations have within the last century, especially in the light of the development of plate tectonic theory, broadened to include studies of geophysics and geo-chemistry that offer sweeping and powerful explanations of how continents move, to explanations of the geochemical mechanisms by which magma cools and hardens into a multitude of igneous rocks.
Earth
’
s formation and ...