SS/BSS/09/0103
KWAKU FRIMPONG MARFO
WRITE A DETAILED ESSAY ON THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF EARTH SCIENCE.
Earth Science is the name for all science that collectively seeks to understand the Earth and its neighbors in space. Some Earth scientists use their knowledge of the Earth to locate and develop energy and mineral resources. Others also study the impact of human activity on Earth’s environment and design methods to protect the planet. Some also use their knowledge about Earth processes such as volcanoes, earthquakes and hurricanes to plan communities that will not expose people to these dangerous events. Earth science is also known as the Geosciences, the Geosciences or Earth sciences. It is arguably a special case in planetary science, the Earth being the only life-bearing planet. There are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth sciences. The formal discipline of Earth science may include the study of the atmosphere, oceans and biosphere as well as the solid earth. Typically, Earth scientists will use tools from physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics to build a quantitative understanding of how the earth system works and how it evolved to its current state.
Like all other scientists, Earth scientists apply the scientific method: Problem statement, Review literature, Formulate hypothesis after observation of and gathering data about natural phenomena and then test these hypotheses. Finally, there is the need for one to publish and explain the research in the scientific community. It must however be pointed out that Earth science is inter-disciplined—it cuts across all sciences and study fields.
Science in the broadest sense refers to any systematic methodology which attempts to collect accurate information about the shared reality and to model this in a way which can be used to make reliable, concrete and quantitative predictions about events in line with hypotheses proven by experiment. In a more
References: 1.www.geology.com/body.htm 2.www.wcbp.com/geology/conte 3.Earth Science, An Integrated Perspective, Conte, Thompson and Moses