Historyofgeology.fieldofscience.com

"It was nothing of this earth, but a piece of the great outside; and as such dowered with outside properties and obedient to outside laws."
"The Colour Out of Space", by H.P. Lovecraft (1927)

Caricatures are exaggerated sketches of a person or human behavior. However, such cartoons appear only at a superficial glance as simple drawings, as they contain deep and complex insight in our culture and society. This consideration is also true for scientific caricatures, dealing with subjects or persons involved in science and research.

“There is something breathtaking about the basic laws of crystals. They are in no sense a discovery of the human mind; they just “are” – they exist quite independently of us. The most that man can do is become aware, in a moment of clarity, that they are there, and take them into account.
Long before there were people on the earth, crystals were already growing in the earth's crust. On one day or another, a human being first came across such a sparkling morsel of regularity lying on the ground... Читать дальше...

The nuclear fire above Hiroshima in the early morning of August 6, 1945, not only vaporized parts of the city but also created new minerals. In 2015 geologist Mario Wannier discovered small particles of metal and glass in the sand collected along the shores of Miyajima Island and Motoujina Peninsula, located south of the hypocenter of the explosion.

The Scottish Maria Matilda Ogilvie Gordon (1864-1939), or May as she was called, was the oldest daughter of a pastoral family composed of eight children, five boys and three girls. Maria Ogilvie entered Merchant Company Schools' Ladies College in Edinburgh at the age of nine. Already in these early years, she showed a profound interest in nature. During holidays she enjoyed exploring the landscape of the Highlands accompanied by her elder brother, the later geologist Sir Francis Ogilvie. Maria... Читать дальше...

 The first purported photo of Nessie was published in The Daily Mail on April 21, 1934.

 “I collected every plant, which I could see in flower, & as it was the flowering season I hope my collection may be of some interest to you." - Charles Darwin in a letter to his friend and mentor John Stevens Henslow, 1836.

Charles Robert Darwin's interest in the natural world was widespread. As a student, he loved to hunt animals and collected bugs and minerals. His mentor and friend John Stevens Henslow, mineralogist and professor of botany, introduced the young Darwin to both disciplines. Читать дальше...

In the 19th century, the discrepancy between the age of Earth and the age of the cosmos posed a great problem to scientists. Geologists had calculated, using methods like erosion or sedimentation rates, ages for Earth spanning from three million to fifteen billion years. Physicists and astronomers, based mostly on the energy output of stars, calculated an age for the universe spanning from twenty million to ten billion years - so in many models of the cosmos, Earth seemed to be too young or too old to fit in. Читать дальше...

When, in 1631, Vesuvius erupted violently after having been dormant for more than 300 years, it aroused great interest among Europe's elite. German Jesuit and naturalist Athanasius Kircher traveled to Southern Italy to study Vesuvius, descending even in the crater. The volcano was almost continuously active, especially after 1750 and Naples became part of the cities traveler should visit when in Italy.