Geoscience in the context of Empirical law

Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. The term law has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) across all fields of natural science (physics, chemistry, astronomy, geoscience, biology). Laws are developed from data and can be further developed through mathematics; in all cases they are directly or indirectly based on empirical evidence. It is generally understood that they implicitly reflect, though they do not explicitly assert, causal relationships fundamental to reality, and are discovered rather than invented.

Scientific laws summarize the results of experiments or observations, usually within a certain range of application. In general, the accuracy of a law does not change when a new theory of the relevant phenomenon is worked out, but rather the scope of the law's application, since the mathematics or statement representing the law does not change. As with other kinds of scientific knowledge, scientific laws do not express absolute certainty, as mathematical laws do. A scientific law may be contradicted, restricted, or extended by future observations.

Topography is the study of forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps.

Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary science, and is concerned with local detail in general, including not only relief, but also natural, artificial, and cultural features such as roads, land boundaries, and buildings. In the United States, topography often means specifically relief, even though the USGS topographic maps record not just elevation contours, but also roads, populated places, structures, land boundaries, and so on.

An Earth ellipsoid or Earth spheroid is a mathematical figure approximating the Earth's shape and size, used as a reference frame for computations in geodesy, astronomy, and the geosciences. Various different reference ellipsoids have been used as approximations.

It is an oblate spheroid (an ellipsoid of revolution) whose minor axis (polar diameter), connecting the geographical poles, is approximately aligned with the Earth's axis of rotation. The ellipsoid is also defined by the major axis (equatorial axis); the difference between the two axes is slightly more than 21 km or 0.335%.

George Gaylord Simpson (June 16, 1902 – October 6, 1984) was an American paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the modern synthesis, contributing Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944), The Meaning of Evolution (1949) and The Major Features of Evolution (1953). He was an expert on extinct mammals and their intercontinental migrations. Simpson was extraordinarily knowledgeable about Mesozoic fossil mammals and fossil mammals of North and South America. He anticipated such concepts as punctuated equilibrium (in Tempo and Mode) and dispelled the myth that the evolution of the horse was a linear process culminating in the modern Equus caballus. He coined the word hypodigm in 1940, and published extensively on the taxonomy of fossil and extant mammals. Simpson was influentially, and incorrectly, opposed to Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift, but accepted the theory of plate tectonics (and continental drift) when the evidence became conclusive.

He was Professor of Zoology at Columbia University, and Curator of the Department of Geology and Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History from 1945 to 1959. He was Curator of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University from 1959 to 1970, and a Professor of Geosciences at the University of Arizona from 1968 until his retirement in 1982.

The Natural Sciences Tripos is the framework within which most of the science at the University of Cambridge is taught. The tripos includes a wide range of natural sciences from physics, astronomy, and geoscience, to chemistry and biology, which are taught alongside the history and philosophy of science. The tripos covers several courses which form the University of Cambridge system of Tripos. It is known for its broad range of study in the first year, in which students cannot study just one discipline, but instead must choose three courses in different areas of the natural sciences and one in mathematics. As is traditional at Cambridge, the degree awarded after Part II (three years of study) is a Bachelor of Arts (BA). A Master of Natural Sciences degree (MSci) is available to those who take the optional Part III (one further year). It was started in the 19th century.

Environmental archaeology is a sub-discipline of archaeology which emerged in the 1970s and seeks to use archaeological data to reconstruct the relationships between past societies and the environments they lived in. It utilizes approaches from paleoecology to study past environments through the methods of human paleoecology and other geosciences. Reconstructing past environments and past peoples' relationships and interactions with the landscapes they inhabited provides archaeologists with insights into the origins and evolution of anthropogenic environments and human systems. This includes subjects such as prehistoric lifestyle adaptations to change and how economic practices have affected the environment.

Environmental archaeology often involves studying plant and animal remains in order to investigate which plant and animal species were present at the time of past habitations, and how past societies managed and interacted with them. It may also involve studying the physical environment and how similar or different it was in the past compared to the present day. An important component of such analyses represents the study of site formation processes.

The Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology and the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London, the oldest geological society in the world. It is considered to be the most prestigious award in geology, and is given for outstanding contributions to geoscience. The medal is named after English chemist William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831.

The Wollaston Medal was originally made of gold (1831–1845), and then palladium, which was the metal discovered by Wollaston (1846–1860). It was switched to gold again from 1861 to 1929, and then back to palladium from 1930 to present.

Challenging Minisatellite Payload (CHAMP) was a German satellite launched July 15, 2000 from Plesetsk, Russia and was used for atmospheric and ionospheric research, as well as other geoscientific applications, such as GPS radio occultation, gravity field determination, and studying the Earth's magnetic field.

CHAMP was managed by GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) Potsdam.