The Case for Nanogeoscience

In the last 200 years, geoscience has been about the convergence of sciences and technologies, particularly from the fields of chemistry and physics, while adding techniques, observations, and reasoning that seem to be wholly "geologic" in origin and nature. However, more recently, geoscience has also become an actively participating domain of at least three of the four major "NBIC" (nano-bio-info-cogno) enterprises, namely nanoscience and technology, modern molecular biology, and information technologies. This article will emphasize perhaps the least obvious of these connections, the "nano" aspects of the geosciences, and also adds a few aspects of the influence of modern molecular biology. There is no question that these new convergences are beginning to change the way geoscientists think about Earth, with critical applications in many areas of modern environmental science.