Geology, Earth Science and Geoscience: What's the Difference?

Geology students interpret a rock found below the rim of North Caineville Mesa, Utah.
Ethan Welty / Getty Images

"Geology," "Earth science" and "geoscience" are different terms with the same literal definition: the study of the Earth. In the academic world and the professional realm, the terms may be interchangeable or have different connotations based on how they are being used. Over the last few decades, many colleges and universities have changed their geology degrees to Earth science or geoscience or added those as separate degrees altogether. 

On "Geology"

Geology is the older word and has a much longer history. In that sense, geology is the root of Earth science.

The word arose before today's scientific discipline. The first geologists weren't even geologists; they were "natural philosophers," academic types whose novelty lay in extending the methods of philosophy to the book of nature. The first meaning of the word geology, in the 1700s, was a treatise, a "theory of the Earth," much like Isaac Newton's triumph, the cosmology or "theory of the heavens," a century before. The still earlier "geologists" of medieval times were inquisitive, cosmological theologians who treated the Earth by analogy to the body of Christ and paid scant attention to rocks. They produced some erudite discourse and fascinating diagrams, but nothing that we would recognize as science. Today's Gaia hypothesis might be thought of as a New Age version of this long-forgotten world view.

Eventually, geologists shook off that musty medieval mantle, but their subsequent activities gave them a new reputation that was to haunt them later.

Geologists are the ones who explored the rocks, mapped the mountains, explained the landscape, discovered the Ice Ages and laid bare the workings of the continents and the deep Earth. Geologists are the ones who found aquifers, planned mines, advised the extractive industries, and laid straight the road to wealth based on gold, oil, iron, coal and more. Geologists put the rock record in order, classified the fossils, named the eons and eras of prehistory and laid out the deep foundation of biological evolution. 

I tend to think of geology as one of the true original sciences, along with astronomy, geometry, and mathematics. Chemistry began as a purified, laboratory child of geology. Physics originated as an abstraction of engineering. This is not to downplay their wonderful progress and great stature, but only to establish priority.

On 'Earth Science' and 'Geoscience' 

Earth science and geoscience gained currency with newer, more interdisciplinary tasks that build upon the work of the geologists. To put it simply, all geologists are Earth scientists, but not all Earth scientists are geologists. 

The twentieth century brought revolutionary progress to every field of science. It was the cross-fertilization of chemistry, physics, and computation, newly applied to the old problems of geology, that opened up geology into a wider realm referred to as Earth science or geoscience. It seemed like a whole new field in which the rock hammer and field map and thin section were less relevant. 

Today, an Earth science or geoscience degree entails a much wider realm of subjects than a traditional geology degree. It studies all of Earth's dynamic processes, so typical coursework may include oceanography, paleoclimatology, meteorology, and hydrology as well as normal "traditional" geology courses like mineralogy, geomorphology, petrology, and stratigraphy

Geoscientists and Earth scientists do things that geologists of the past never contemplated. Earth scientists help oversee the remediation of polluted sites. They study the causes and effects of climate change. They advise the managers of lands, wastes, and resources. They compare the structures of planets around our Sun and around other stars.

Green and Brown Science

It appears that educators have had an extra effect as curriculum standards for primary and secondary school students have grown more complex and involved. Among these educators, the typical definition of "Earth science" is that it consists of geology, oceanography, meteorology, and astronomy. As I see it, geology is a burgeoning set of subspecialties that are expanding into these neighboring sciences (not oceanography but marine geology; not meteorology but climatology; not astronomy but planetary geology), but that's clearly a minority opinion. A basic Internet search turns up twice as many "Earth science lesson plans" as "geology lesson plans." 

Geology is minerals, maps, and mountains; rocks, resources, and eruptions; erosion, sediment, and caves. It involves walking around in boots and doing hands-on exercises with ordinary substances. Geology is brown.

Earth science and geoscience are the study of geology as well as pollution, food webs, paleontology, habitats, plates, and climate change. It involves all of Earth's dynamic processes, not just those on the crust. Earth science is green.

Maybe it's all just a matter of language. "Earth science" and "geoscience" are as straightforward in English as "geology" is in scientific Greek. And as a sarcastic defense to the increasing popularity of the former terms; how many college freshmen know Greek?

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Alden, Andrew. "Geology, Earth Science and Geoscience: What's the Difference?" ThoughtCo, Oct. 29, 2020, thoughtco.com/geology-earth-science-and-geoscience-1440403. Alden, Andrew. (2020, October 29). Geology, Earth Science and Geoscience: What's the Difference? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/geology-earth-science-and-geoscience-1440403 Alden, Andrew. "Geology, Earth Science and Geoscience: What's the Difference?" ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/geology-earth-science-and-geoscience-1440403 (accessed March 19, 2024).