Abstract Scientists have long been trained to build on the successes or failures of their predecessors, their teachers, and their fellows largely through scientific associations and their publications. Such societies range from small, local ones to huge organizations with membership drawn from over 100 countries. The oldest and most prestigious for geophysicists is the Royal Society, given both its name and charter by Britain’s King Charles II back in 1660. The Royal Astronomical Society, chartered in 1820, has also had a marked interest in geophysical matters, even to the extent of publishing a Geophysical Journal , because the earth is very much a part of the planetary system. Within the United States, the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was started as an ally of government at the initiative of President Abraham Lincoln who asked the scientific community in 1863 for technical assistance with the war effort. Geophysical societies per se did not appear until the early 1900s. As a result of the great San Francisco earthquake, the Seismological Society of America (SSA) was formed in 1906. The International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) came into being in 1911, while its U.S. interface, the American Geophysical Union (AGU), was finally organized in 1919. The field of exploration geophysics lagged even further, with the Society of Exploration Geophysicists not being incorporated until 1930. Long before the advent of scientific societies, perceptive men had been contending with the physical forces of nature. Aristotle (384–322 BC) compiled the first known geophysical treatise, the Meteorologica, less than half of which pertained to weather matters—the remainder dealt with oceanography, astronomy, and meteors (also called shooting stars). Formal seismic instrumentation appeared as early as A.D. 132 when Chang Heng set up a seismoscope in China that not only indicated that an earthquake had occurred but also the direction of the first motion. However, man’s formal knowledge of the physics of the earth did not change much from the time of Aristotle until late in the European Renaissance, when the fertile mind of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) initiated new thinking on this subject, as he did in so many others. Early in the 16th century, he studied, for example, the tides of the Euxine (Black) and Caspian Seas, as well as the mechanics and inherent dangers of rock slippage along a geological fault near Florence, Italy. He also deduced that Alpine rocks were at one time submerged for he found embedded sea shell fossils.

Abstract Coal, “the black rock that burns,” is the subject of song, story, and legend. The earliest literature citation of coal (combustible bodies, some of which by inference must be coal) is credited to Aristotle in his treatise “Meteorology,” which may date near the middle of the fourth century B.C. Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, at what is probably a slightly later date provides descriptions of different forms of coal based on their behavior in combustion, identifies areas of occurrence, and states that it was used by smiths (footnote by Hoover to Agricola, 1556). Though the Greek philosophers are responsible for the earliest known literature citations, China and perhaps other parts of eastern Asia are usually believed to have preceded the Mediterranean area in recognition of coal as a peculiar material with usable properties. Inouye (1913) states that although there is no authentic record of the history of the Fu-shun coal field in southern Manchuria, “it is said that the coal was used as fuel … for copper smelting in times as remote as 2,000 or even 3,000 years ago.” Fires through most of man’s history have been fed by “traditional fuels"—wood, straw, dung, and other plant materials. That coal could be of complementary usage is recorded in the remains of funeral pyres in Wales, dated about 3,000 years ago (Lindbergh and Proverse, 1977). However, the versatility of coal was not widely appreciated, and the discovery and use of charcoal satisfied most needs of primitive metal-working. By the end of the

Abstract Coal, “the black rock that burns,” is the subject of song, story, and legend. The earliest literature citation of coal (combustible bodies, some of which by inference must be coal) is credited to Aristotle in his treatise “Meteorology,” which may date near the middle of the fourth century B.C. Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, at what is probably a slightly later date provides descriptions of different forms of coal based on their behavior in combustion, identifies areas of occurrence, and states that it was used by smiths (footnote by Hoover to Agricola, 1556). Though the Greek philosophers are responsible for the earliest known literature citations, China and perhaps other parts of eastern Asia are usually believed to have preceded the Mediterranean area in recognition of coal as a peculiar material with usable properties. Inouye (1913) states that although there is no authentic record of the history of the Fu-shun coal field in southern Manchuria, “it is said that the coal was used as fuel … for copper smelting in times as remote as 2,000 or even 3,000 years ago.” Fires through most of man’s history have been fed by “traditional fuels"—wood, straw, dung, and other plant materials. That coal could be of complementary usage is recorded in the remains of funeral pyres in Wales, dated about 3,000 years ago (Lindbergh and Proverse, 1977). However, the versatility of coal was not widely appreciated, and the discovery and use of charcoal satisfied most needs of primitive metal-working. By the end of the

In Classical Times knowledge of minerals was based almost entirely upon philosophical speculations. Interesting theories were never tested by direct observations and mining was not a socially acceptable occupation. Little attention was given to mining and minerals, other than gems, and then only as an adjunct to the broader theories concerning the origin of the Universe. Although there may have been earlier writers Aristotle is the first known to us to have presented a comprehensive theory of the origin and nature of minerals. In his Meteorologica he advanced the theory that all natural substances consisted of four properties, dryness, dampness, heat and cold, and these were combined in the four primitive elements, water, air, earth and fire, elements that could be transmuted by altering the relative proportions of the properties. This concept dominated the thinking of man for the next two thousand years. Another early treatise on minerals was De Mineralibus by Theophrastus, a contemporary of Aristotle. Theophrastus accepted the theory of four primitive elements and separated mineral substances into two classes, those affected by heat and those not affected. The next important work on minerals was the monumental Natural History of Pliny, an encyclopedia of the entire field of Nature, written in 77 a.d . In it are collected all the theories, fables and observations of Greek, Latin and Oriental writers up to that time. This work served as the authority and source book for writers on Natural History subjects for sixteen centuries, although it did not dominate or shape . . .

Agricola's Bermannus (1530) and his “minor” works describe his career as an expert in mining knowledge. If we examine the period after publication of his collected works in 1546, Bermannus and the other works provide additional keys for understanding the influence of Agricola on development of the mineralogical and geological sciences in Italy. These publications also offer a way of understanding the link between the culture of the humanists and that of the practitioners; this, after all, led to the birth of the empirical sciences. Agricola's fourfold classification of fossil objects (earth, concretionary juice, stone, metal) improved considerably the twofold classification by Aristotle and became an influential paradigm for the scientists of the late sixteenth century that was further refined and developed as to the genetic environment of different types by Aldrovandi and Imperato.

Abstract A detailed stratigraphy is an essential exploration tool. Stratigraphy can serve as a predictor of lithology prior to drilling. Effective prediction results from accurate regional geology. Regional geology may be thought of as a “momentary”, geologically speaking, view of an area's physiography and understanding the earth-changing processes operative at a given time. A compilation of these physiographic views in sequence with absolute dates in years yields a chronostratigraphy. A legitimate question concerns how geologic time may be understood: is it a series of random events or are there cyclic events? Obviously, there are cyclic events, not totally random. The next logical question concerns the periodicity of the cycles and at what time spacing should they be viewed to be recognized. The Exxon/Vail chronostratigraphy (Vail et al., 1977, Haq et al., 1987, 1988, and Lowrie, 1986) reveal cycles that essentially are exponential: first order cycles have a duration of some (10) 8 years or several multiples thereof; second order cycles have a duration of some (10) 7 years or several multiples thereof; and third order cycles with a duration of some (10) 6 years or several multiples thereof. That the sedimentary cover of our planet is composed of different strata has been known since the days of Aristotle. The present desire is to assign absolute dates to the various layers. Such an effort requires an iterative approach combining the results of paleontology, magnetic stratigraphy, sequence stratigraphy, and radiometric dates, Haq et, al., 1988. The understanding