1. What is geoscience?

2. Geoscience a group of related disciplines focused on the Earth and its systems, history, and resources it’s more than just rocks: geoscience also involves climate, plants, asteroids, fossils, archaeology, pollen, glaciers, lakes, etc.

3. Geoscience looks at everything involving the Earth and other planets, little picture to big picture also investigates ways that geology can help or harm people

4. Little picture (grains of sand to molecules & atoms) grains of sand (sedimentology) crystals (mineralogy and crystallography) molecules in groundwater individual atoms (isotope geochemistry)

5. Big picture (Earth as a whole) plate tectonics composition and structure of the crust, mantle, and core impact cratering formation and evolution of the Earth

6. Big picture (Earth as a whole) some fields of geoscience into the big picture: geophysics seismology structural geology planetary science

7. Geologic hazards geologic events that can harm people or property, such as volcanoes earthquakes landslides and avalanches sinkholes floods

8. Geologic hazards areas of geoscience that study these hazards include: volcanology seismology geophysics engineering geology geomorphology hydrology

9. Natural resources geologic materials used by people, such as: energy (petroleum, coal, geothermal, hydroelectric) materials (metals, gemstones, sand and gravel) fresh water fertile soil

10. Natural resources areas of geoscience concerned with natural resources include: exploration geophysics mineral mining hydrology soil science

11. Earth history some geoscientists study changes in the Earth’s past, such as: past climate evolution of the atmosphere ice ages past plant and animal life mass extinctions human evolution

12. Earth history geoscience fields involved in this research: paleoclimatology dendrochronology paleontology paleoanthropology geoarchaeology chronometry

13. Summary Geoscience is a very broad field involving the study of the Earth and other planets, from atoms and molecules to planetwide events like earthquakes There are many diverse careers involved in geoscience research

14. all photographs © 1994-2005 kevin jones