Introduction Geology is the science of the Earth, the study of its physical makeup and history. It is the key to finding new sources of energy-producing materials, additional reserves of mineral resources, and hidden quantities of ground water. Geologists not only study rocks as they are now, but determine the processes by which they were formed. For geologists, the Earth is an outdoor laboratory. They study mountains, plains, oceans, rocks, soils and the water above and within the ground.
Geologists find out what formed the Earth billions of years ago.
They study fossils and sediments in order to understand the geologic past, tracing life from the earliest known bacteria of more than three billion years ago to the ancestors of modern man. Dynamic Earth focuses on the Earth's structure and composition, and deals with the physical and chemical processes that affect it. Earth History is the study of the evolution of the Earth and its life forms from its origins to the present. Geologists concerned with the physical aspects of Earth materials include mineralogists who analyze, classify and describe minerals, and petrologists who study the structure and composition of rocks. Even more specialized is the geochemist.