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V.I. Vernadskii and the development of biogeochemical understandings of the biosphere, c.1880s–1968

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2012

JONATHAN D. OLDFIELD  and
DENIS J.B. SHAW
JONATHAN D. OLDFIELD
Affiliation:
Central and East European Studies, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, UK. Email: [email protected].
DENIS J.B. SHAW
Affiliation:
School of Geographical, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

General notions of the biosphere are widely recognized and form important elements of contemporary debate concerning global environmental change, helping to focus attention on the complex interactions that characterize the Earth's natural systems. At the same time, there is continued uncertainty over the precise definition of the concept allied to a relatively limited critique of its early development, which was linked closely to advances in the natural sciences during the late nineteenth century and particularly, it is argued here, to the emergence of biogeochemistry. In the light of this, the principal aim of the paper is to explore the development and subsequent dissemination of biogeochemical renderings of the biosphere concept, focusing primarily on the work of the Russian biogeochemist Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii (1863–1945). The paper identifies four key moments which, it is argued, help to explain the development and subsequent dissemination of a biogeochemical understanding of the biosphere. First, we draw attention to the particularities of St Petersburg's natural-science community during the late nineteenth century, arguing that this was instrumental in providing the basis for Vernadskii's future work related to the biosphere. Second, we consider the ways in which Vernadskii's ideas concerning the biosphere were able to move to the West during the first half of the twentieth century with specific reference to his links with the French scientists Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Edouard Le Roy, and the US-based ecologist George Evelyn Hutchinson. Third, we reflect more purposefully on matters of reception and, in particular, the emergence of a set of circumstances within Western ecological science after 1945, which encouraged a positive engagement with biogeochemical understandings of the biosphere. Finally, we examine the 1968 UNESCO-sponsored Biosphere Conference, which represented the first time the biosphere concept was employed at the international level. Furthermore, this event was in many ways a high point for a specifically biogeochemical approach, with the subsequent popularization of the biosphere concept during the course of the 1970s helping to broaden the discourse markedly.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 287 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2012 

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References

1 Biogeochemistry is concerned broadly with understanding the complex interactions that take place between living and non-living matter within and between the Earth's lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. The Russian academic Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskii is generally acknowledged as the first person to utilize this term as part of his work concerning the biosphere. However, the term has a long intellectual heritage, with key conceptual insights traceable to at least the seventeenth century. See Gorham, Eville, ‘Biogeochemistry: its origins and development’, Biogeochemistry (1991) 13, pp. 199–239, 224–225Google Scholar. For contemporary developments in this field see William H. Schlesinger (ed.), Treatise on Geochemistry, vol. 8: Biogeochemistry, Amsterdam: Elsevier Pergamon, 2004.

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21 Vernadskii pursued a similar line of thought whilst reflecting on the biosphere's evolution towards the noosphere, of which more below. See Vernadsky, W.I., ‘The biosphere and the noösphere’, American Scientist (1945) 33, pp. 1–12, 10Google Scholar.

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24 Vernadskii's interest in crystallography and mineralogy would broaden over time to incorporate a focus on chemical processes and associated elements (geochemistry) as well as the complex interplay between biological, chemical and geological processes within the natural environment (biogeochemistry). See Alexander Yanshin, ‘Introduction’, in Geochemistry and the Biosphere: Essays by Vladimir I. Vernadsky (ed. Frank B. Salisbury), Santa Fe, NM: Synergetic Press, 2007, xvii–xlii, xx–xxxv.

25 See Bailes, op. cit. (23), pp. 17–21.

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29 For example, see I.N. Skrynnikova, ‘O perepiske V.V. Dokuchaeva i V.I. Vernadskogo’, in S.I. Vavilov, Kh.S. Koshtoyants, N.A. Figurovskii et al. (eds.), Nauchnoe nasledstvo, Tom vtoroi, Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1951, pp. 745–760.

30 See also Bailes, op. cit. (23), pp. 19–20.

31 See Grinevald, op. cit. (11).

32 See, for example, Lapenis, Andrei G., ‘Directed evolution of the biosphere: Biogeochemical selection or Gaia?’, Professional Geographer (2002) 54, pp. 379–391Google Scholar; Oldfield, Jonathan D. and Shaw, Denis J.B., ‘V.I. Vernadsky and the noosphere concept: Russian understandings of society–nature interaction’, Geoforum (2006) 37, pp. 145–154Google Scholar.

33 Vladimir I. Vernadskii, ‘Biosfera’, in Biosfera i Noosfera, Moscow: Rol'f, 2002, pp. 31–182, 35, emphases in the original (authors’ translation).

34 See e.g. B.S. Sokolov, ‘Vstupitel'noe slovo na simpoziume “V.I. Vernadskii i sovremennost’”’, in B.S. Sokolov and A.L. Yanshin (eds.), V.I. Vernadskii i sovremennost’, Moscow: Nauka, 1986, pp. 7–10, 8–9; A.L. Yanshin, ‘V.I. Vernadskii i ego uchenie o biosfere i perekhoda ee v noosferu’, in Sokolov and Yanshin, V.I. Vernadskii i sovremennost’, op. cit., pp. 28–40, 33; see also F.T. Yanshina and S.N. Zhidovinov, ‘Predislovie’, in V.I. Vernadskii, Khimicheskoe stroenie biosfery zemli i ee okruzheniya, Moscow: Nauka, 2001, pp. 5–12.

35 N.B. Vassoevich, ‘Uchenie o biosfere (1802–1876–1926)’, in A.L. Yanshin (ed.), V.I. Vernadskii: Pro et Contra, St Petersburg: Izdatel'stvo Russkogo Khristianskogo gumanitarnogo instituta, 2000, pp. 508–512, 509.

36 Yanshin, op. cit. (34), p. 33.

37 Sokolov, op. cit. (34), pp. 8–9.

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42 For an English-language overview of this book see Smil, op. cit. (13), pp. 5–9.

43 Vernadskii, op. cit. (33), pp. 42–43 (authors’ translation).

44 Vernadskii, op. cit. (33), p. 54 (authors’ translation).

45 The situation has, however, changed during the course of the last twenty years or so, underpinned by the English-language translations of his key 1926 text The Biosphere. The first abridged version of his book was published in 1986 (Vladimir I. Vernadsky, The Biosphere (abridged version), Oracle, AZ: Synergetic Press, 1986) and this was followed by a full (albeit revised) translation in 1998 (Vernadsky, op. cit. (11)).

46 Bailes, op. cit. (23), pp. 160–178.

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48 This is a reference to the French philosopher Henri Bergson. According to Grinevald (op. cit. (11), pp. 25–26), Vernadskii's understanding of the biosphere as ‘a biogeochemical evolving system with a cosmic significance … was indebted to many new and old ideas in science, as well as in philosophy, Bergson's anti-mechanistic epistemology of life notably’.

49 Yanshina and Zhidovinov, op. cit. (34), p. 10 (authors’ translation).

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51 Sokolov and Yanshin, V.I. Vernadskii i sovremennost’, op. cit. (34).

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53 Yanshina and Zhidovinov, op. cit. (34), pp. 10–11.

54 See also Oldfield and Shaw, op. cit. (32).

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59 Bailes, op. cit. (23), p. 13.

60 Nicolson, op. cit. (16), 1987.

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62 For example, Ghilarov, op. cit. (56), p. 162.

63 Vernadskii, op. cit. (34), pp. 339–341; Vernadsky, op. cit. (21), p. 7; see also Hutchinson, op. cit. (12), p. 45.

64 J.B. Lamarck, Hydrogeology (tr. Albert V. Carozzi), Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964; see also Gegamyan, op. cit. (58); Ghilarov, op. cit. (56). For a general assessment see Carozzi, Albert V., ‘Lamarck's theory of the earth: Hydrogeologie’, Isis (1964) 55, pp. 293–307CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 For example, Bailes, op. cit. (23); Yanshin, op. cit. (34), pp. 29–31.

66 Geochemistry emerged strongly in Russia via the activities of Vernadskii and his student A. Fersman during the early part of the twentieth century (for example, see Fersman, A., Geochemistry for Everyone, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1958Google Scholar), with concurrent and significant developments in Norway under V.A. Goldschmidt (1888–1947) and also in the USA (see Rosbaud, Paul, ‘Victor Moritz Goldschmidt (1888–1947)’, Applied Geochemistry (1988) 3, pp. 361–369Google Scholar; Mason, Brian, Victor Moritz Goldschmidt: Father of Modern Geochemistry, Special Publication No. 4, San Antonio, TX: The Geochemical Society, 1992Google Scholar). In contrast, the development of biogeochemistry was dominated by Vernadskii and his Russian school. G. Evelyn Hutchinson noted in his autobiography that his 1946 course on biogeochemistry was likely the first such course taught outside Evelyn Hutchinson, Russia. G., The Kindly Fruits of the Earth: Recollections of an Embryo Ecologist, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979, p. 249Google Scholar.

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105 Dobrovol'skii, V.A. Kovda: Zhizn’ i, op. cit. (101), pp. 215–218.

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107 From an organizational perspective, the Advisory Committee on Natural Resources Research replaced and expanded the activities of the former Arid Zone and Humid Tropics Committees. See UNESCO, Unesco's Natural Resources Research Programme, UNESCO/AVS/NR/118, 26 February 1965, p. 7.

108 Malcolm Hadley, ‘Nature to the fore: the early years of UNESCO's environmental programme, 1945–1965’, in Patrick Petitjean, Vladimir Zharov, Gisbert Glaser et al. (eds.), Sixty Years of Science at UNESCO 1945–2005, Paris: UNESCO, 2006, pp. 201–232, 224–225. Michel Batisse was a key figure in UNESCO's natural resources programme and would act as general secretary of the Biosphere Conference.

109 Article 2.1, Statutes of the Advisory Committee on Natural Resources Research. Statutes of the Advisory Committee on Natural Resources Research are listed in the Appendix of the Resolutions and Decisions Adopted by the Executive Board at Its Seventieth Session, Paris, 4 June 1965, available at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001132/113213e.pdf, accessed 8 October 2010.

110 Anon., op. cit. (100), p. 1.

111 Michel Batisse, ‘Rabota v YuNESKO’, Dobrovol'skii, op. cit. (101), pp. 60–66, 65.

112 UNESCO, Advisory committee on natural resources research, first session: Final Report, UNESCO/NS/201, 3 December 1965, p. 5.

113 UNESCO, Natural resources research and the Unesco programme, Advisory committee on natural resources research, first session (23–25 September), UNESCO/AVS/NR/171, 23 August 1965, pp. 2–4.

114 UNESCO, op. cit. (113), p. 3.

115 Anon., ‘Conservation and rational use of the environment’, Nature and Resources (1968) 4(2), pp. 2–5Google Scholar, 2. Dasmann was at that time a senior associate at the Conservation Foundation in Washington, DC and would go on to play a role in the establishment of UNESCO's Man and Biosphere (MAB) programme. See Dasmann, Raymond F., Called by the Wild: The Autobiography of a Conservationist, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, pp. 139–141Google Scholar.

116 Dasmann, op. cit. (115), pp. 140–141.

117 Anon., op. cit. (115), p. 2.

118 Batisse, op. cit. (111), p. 65.

119 Anon., op. cit. (100), p. 2.

120 Anon., ‘Conference on the resources of the biosphere’, Nature and Resources (1968) 4(1), pp. 2–3Google Scholar, 2.

121 The Russian-language version of this paper was published in a collection of essays as follows: V.A. Kovda (ed.), Biosfera i ee resursy, Moscow: Nauka, 1971.

122 Vernadskii, Vladimir I., Problems of Biogeochemistry. Part I: Significance of Biogeochemistry for Studying the Biosphere, Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1934Google Scholar.

123 Gerasimov, I.P. (ed.), Resources of the Biosphere on the Territory of the USSR: Scientific Principles of Rational Use and Conservation. National Report for the International Conference on the Resources of the Biosphere, UNESCO, 1968, Moscow: State Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers for Science and Technology, 1968Google Scholar.

124 Victor Kovda et al., ‘Contemporary scientific concepts relating to the biosphere’, in UNESCO, Use and Conservation of the Biosphere: Proceedings of the Intergovernmental Conference of Experts on the Scientific Basis for Rational Use and Conservation of the Resources of the Biosphere, Paris 4–13 September 1968, Paris: UNESCO, 1970, pp. 13–29, 15.

125 Vernadskii also referred to ‘inert matter’ (kosnoe veshchestvo), which is formed in the absence of living matter. See Vernadskii, op. cit. (63), pp. 70–71; see also Ghilarov, op. cit. (16), p. 196.

126 For example, see Weiner, Douglas R., A Little Corner of Freedom: Russian Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachëv, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, pp. 387–389Google Scholar.

127 Kovda et al., op. cit. (124), p. 17.

128 UNESCO, op. cit. (124), pp. 194–195.

129 UNESCO, op. cit. (124), p. 234.