Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the cryosphere, the hydrosphere, the pedosphere, the atmosphere, and the lithosphere). In particular, biogeochemistry is the study of biogeochemical cycles, the cycles of chemical elements such as carbon and nitrogen, and their interactions with and incorporation into living things transported through earth scale biological systems in space and time. The field focuses on chemical cycles which are either driven by or influence biological activity. Particular emphasis is placed on the study of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, iron, and phosphorus cycles. Biogeochemistry is a systems science closely related to systems ecology. History Early Greek Early Greeks established the core idea of biogeochemistry that nature consists of cycles. 18th-19th centuries Agricultural interest in 18th-century soil chemistry led to better understanding of nutrients and their connection to biochemical processes. This relationship between the cycles of organic life and their chemical products was further expanded upon by Dumas and Boussingault in a 1844 paper that is considered an important milestone in the development of biogeochemistry. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck first used the term biosphere in 1802, and others continued to develop the concept throughout the 19th century. Early climate research by scientists like Charles Lyell, John Tyndall, and Joseph Fourier began to link glaciation, weathering, and climate. 20th century The founder of modern biogeochemistry was Vladimir Vernadsky, a Russian and Ukrainian scientist whose 1926 book The Biosphere, in the tradition of Mendeleev, formulated a physics of the Earth as a living whole. Vernadsky distinguished three spheres, where a sphere was a concept similar to the concept of a phase-space. He observed that each sphere had its own laws of evolution, and that the higher spheres modified and dominated the lower: Abiotic sphere – all the non-living energy and material processes Biosphere – the life processes that live within the abiotic sphere Nöesis or noosphere – the sphere of human cognitive process Human activities (e.g., agriculture and industry) modify the biosphere and abiotic sphere. In the contemporary environment, the amount of influence humans have on the other two spheres is comparable to a geological force (see Anthropocene). The American limnologist and geochemist G. Evelyn Hutchinson is credited with outlining the broad scope and principles of this new field. More recently, the basic elements of the discipline of biogeochemistry