Geophysics—an overview

Understanding the Earth and its environment in space is a broad challenge that has been accepted by a variety of physicists, chemists, mathematicians, engineers, geologists and biologists. While many of these studied aspects of geophysics at the graduate level, many others became geophysicists without being conscious of the transition. A physicist studying phase equilibria at high pressure learns one day that he is working with materials possibly similar to the composition of the interior of the Earth. As he works with geologists and geophysicists to develop models of what we have not yet sampled, he is continuously drawn by the fascination of Earth’s secrets into a total commitment to geoscience, a commitment that will not change his tools or methods of research but will necessitate constant interaction with colleagues, in a variety of disciplines, who are addressing themselves to parts of the solution for the same problem. This need for collaboration among individuals, among disciplines and among countries is a fundamental characteristic of geophysics that in a sense sets it above the basic sciences and gives it a unique flavor of excitement through accomplishment even when progress appears stalled.