Many of us identify as environmental geochemists. It's tough to define what that truly implies. The barriers between scientific fields are becoming increasingly blurred. But were they always this hazy? Is there a specific location and time when one may claim, "This is the beginning of the field?" To begin, one must define environmental geochemistry. Geochemistry is the study of the chemical composition of the earth and other planets, as well as the chemical processes, cycles, and reactions that influence the composition of rocks and soils, as well as changes in these governing factors across time and space. Interactions with other Earth systems are assumed but not explicitly stated. Biogeochemistry is a branch of environmental geochemistry that focuses on the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes, cycles, and reactions that influence the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, hydrosphere, pedosphere, atmosphere, and lithosphere).

Because this introduction to principles and applications in environmental geochemistry is not intended to be a comprehensive compendium of all research in the topic, we will skip ahead to Radojevic and Bashkin (1999), who outlined analytical approaches to environmental chemistry. What precisely is environmental chemistry? It's just environmental geochemistry, which smells just as nice but makes chemists feel more at ease.