ABSTRACT
A late nineteenth-century geologist would have been perplexed if asked to define the ‘earth sciences.’ No institutional structure or body of knowledge corresponded to this term. Yet the component fields of what became the earth sciences already existed by this time. Research programs in meteorology, oceanography, solid earth geophysics and seismology, terrestrial magnetism, hydrology, tectonics, and related fields flourished at various institutions. However, what was not yet shared was a conviction that these fields, as well as related research problems in geochemistry, planetary astronomy, and high-pressure physics, were interrelated parts of a conceptual unity, able to address such issues as the nature of earthquakes, the substance of terrestrial-solar relationships, and the future evolution of Earth’s atmosphere.
