Introduction
A geologist points to the clay liner at the bottom of a pit that improperly held radioactive waste at the Fernald Uranium Processing Plant near Ross, OH, just east of Franklin County, Indiana. Environmental clean up operations employee many earth scientists (U.S. Dept. of Energy).
In the first section of this course, we learned about the basic princples of geology and the scientific method. But what is the study of the earth, exactly? What does a geologist do? Are geologists just modern cavemen who have failed to overcome an obsession with rocks?
Most of your knowledge about geology has probably come from news reports and pop culture—movies, cartoons, and TV news programs. Some of what you know may be accurate, and some of it may be completely wrong.
In this section you will learn:
- A more detailed definition of geology
- What geologists can do and where they work
- The key scientific principles of geology
- How geology fits in with other sciences.
You will see the difference between geology and environmental geology is subtle. Additionally, you'll see that geology is closely related to math and other sciences like chemistry, physics, and biology. The discussion on the key scientific principles of geology will lead into upcoming sections on two key principles of geology: plate tectonics and the rock cycle. As you will discover, geology is much more than studying rocks and finding oil.