Geochemistry Summary

-Mateo Ospino Diaz

-Daniela Noches

Geochemistry has been known for many years through the exploration and
extraction of elements of the soil that although they were not removed with a
properly chemical thought were part of this whole world of what would later be
called Geochemistry; before there were ambiguous and erroneous thoughts
about what were the elements and materials that constituted the earth's crust,
around the 17th century, but until the eighteenth century, in which we began to
develop what we can call analytical chemistry and then there are developed
studies that lead to a new deeper thought about the constituent materials of the
earth and identify 46 chemical elements and then with the help of a
spectrograph two scientists could determine about thirty more elements, all this
happened between 1720 and 1925, and later more elements were identified as
radioactive among others, and you could organize them into groups by
similarities.

The first to use the word geochemistry was Christian Friedrich Schönbein who
was a German-Swiss chemist who was given the discovery of nitrocellulose and
is also given that it was he who gave the name to ozone; after this the name
was used again and again that's when scientists and researchers started to
write books about this science, which Frank W. C larke started with his book
The Data of Geochemistry which talked about different processes that occur in
the terrestrial surface and finalized with internal processes of the earth in which
great chemical reactions occurred as it is with fossil fuels, mineralizations,
magmatism, etc ... Until arriving at the book of KH Wedepohl which until its
moment was the most full.

Little by little in the world it was necessary to use mineral resources for various
factors, from jewelry to construction work as main examples these needs were
also increasing the motivation to chemical research of all these resources for
easier maintenance in the part of the geochemistry in the Soviet Union we see
impregnated what is the need for resources. Alexander Fersman was one of the
main projectors of the chemical vision in the mineralogy, carrying out different
studies to demonstrate that the minerals were the result of chemical reactions,
encouraging students to research, this scientist traveled a lot studying different
types of minerals studying their chemical and atomic composition to be able to
refute several of its hypotheses which could have made him known as one of
the best teachers in mineralogy at the time which was a job well deserved for
the work he was doing.
This man published different works which related the chemistry to the
processes, geological being of great help to many students and researchers of
the area.

Then another scientist visionary of Fersman's legacy, Vladimir Ivanovich

Vernadsky, who already goes a little further on firm foundations, talks about
what is the importance of the biosphere in the development of the earth's crust,
introducing important ideas such as the interaction of alive beings in their
evolution and also the formation of fossil reactions that were beneficiaries for
the production and human manufacture, this manages to describe the
biosphere as a great environment in which there are several interactions of the
energy that lead to a result of changes in the surface, all this with geochemical
bases and more in-depth studies of what is the reactions that change the crust;
He was also able to study what is the consequences of climate change through
the greenhouse effect by discharges of carbon dioxide harmful to the planet.

A year later, the scientist Max von Laue discovered what X-ray diffraction is,
which is essential to determine the crystalline structure of a crystal which has a
lot to do with its ionic arrangements and which very soon would give us relevant
information about the formation of this crystal, and much of this with other future
investigations, let us know that the chemical composition of the mineral
depends very much on the ions, and obviously on its surroundings and the
arrangements that this provides to the structure.

Already in the years of 1950 onwards the geochemists began to be more

interested in the chemical forming processes, in one of the sciences that was
used was in the study of the igneous petrography in which different chemical
and thermodynamic processes are present that they present in itself what can
be the type of igneous rock to which it belongs, then we used what is
thermodynamics and chemistry again to determine the stability of minerals and
their ions in the earth's surface, then we can see what is the emergence of the
geochemical prospection in 1974 and was based normally on calorimetry that
was mainly used for the study of soils, this will continue to be one of the most
important applications of modern geochemistry, after this is the environmental
geochemistry which then already gives more to know about those metals and
compounds naturally formed by the earth that can be harmful to the
environment and is normally related to the hydrogeology of minerals and many
other applications that have been very useful at the time of the in-depth
investigation of the problems and benefits that our land chemically takes that
may or may not be profitable for human use and benefit.
Normally the geochemistry was advancing as all science, it must therefore have
a background and there will always be those people who wish to stay with a
little more which would lead to diversify the matter into more subdivisions, this
happened with the geochemistry which one was the inorganic geochemistry ,
organic, of isotopes, prospection, medical chemistry, aqueous, oligoelements
and cosmochemistry, a great ramification which leaves us a more complete part
of what is necessary for a complete study of what is this extensive science of
study, and although most are different scientists from around the world try to
find a union in them so that it becomes more compact and concrete.

Many journals are currently published and many resources are offered that
normally explain what geochemistry is for the explanation of geological
processes, and they are dedicated to answering questions that are normally in
doubt about them.

According to Fersman "geochemistry studies the history of the chemical

elements of the earth's crust and their behavior under different thermodynamic
and physical and chemical conditions" is very important because it gives us
explicitly what is the appropriate and compact definition of everything that
encompasses this matter, then give us different objectives which have the
geochemistry on the planet, which in short are to know, discover, study and
assemble the information obtained, all this to be able to know a little more about
our planet and its internal processes and external that will give us a worldview
closer to what is the reality of these processes.

And not only to know these processes but also to help preserve the
environment and give a better knowledge of how to mitigate certain problems
that could be avoided, by knowledge and prevention, geochemistry studies to
date have been beneficial for all the scientific and knowledge branches of the
planet.

Environmental geochemistry has more recent traces that have presented more
advanced and accelerated development in recent decades. Application is vast,
and covers different types of studies mainly those of water; the distribution of
carbon dioxide and other substances in the atmosphere, geochemistry itself is a
broad science that has advanced through research and above all the need for a
better understanding of our planet.