Physiosphere

The physiosphere is a natural earth sphere . It encompasses the entire inanimate environment of the global biocenosis , i.e. the totality of inanimate things within the ecosphere . A synonym for physiosphere is geosphere .

term

Construction of ecosystems in a functional and spatial perspective: the abiotic environment of an ecosystem in a local perspective is called the physiotope . In the same way, the abiotic environment of the terrestrial ecosystem is called the physiosphere in its global dimension .

The concept of the physiosphere was initiated in 1963. In that year, the German geographer Ernst Neef (1908–1984) published an influential essay on a working concept that he and his students had developed, the concept of geographical viewing dimensions .

The concept states that the geographical space ( landscape sphere ) is to be broken down according to different viewing dimensions. Because the size - the dimensionality - of the considered space has a decisive influence on the choice of appropriate geographical working methods. The small-scale viewing level is the local viewing dimension. Room sections of the local viewing dimension are called Tope . The largest viewing level is the global viewing dimension. The largest possible space excerpts from the global dimension of observation are called spheres . Spheres encompass the entire planet earth. After the room size has been determined, a decision has to be made on the research topic. Both together - that is, the size of the room and the research topic - lead to the final designation of the object of investigation. For example, the floors of a small, locally outlined section of the room can be thematized. Then the subject of the work is called the Pedotop . On the other hand, the soils of the whole earth, i.e. the largest possible global space, can also be addressed. Then we speak of the pedosphere .

The fact that Neef wrote about the physiotope in the same publication - the inanimate environment of a biocenosis in a local spatial dimension - proved to be particularly important for the development of the concept of the physiosphere . True to the naming rules just explained, it followed implicitly that there had to be a physiosphere at the largest global level. However, in 1963 the physiosphere was not explicitly mentioned by Ernst Neef. Nevertheless, the term physiosphere must have been used in the following years. Because it even reached the English-speaking area by 1970 at the latest:

"Last night we had a dialog on the biosphere, and some suggested there was also a sociosphere and a psychosphere and a physiosphere and so forth, but this is incorrect ecological thinking, because ecology is a philosophy of wholeness."

"Last night we had a conversation about the biosphere, and some said there was also a sociosphere, a psychosphere, a physiosphere and so on, but it comes from wrong ecological thinking because ecology is the holistic mindset."

- William C. Peters : Proceedings: Of the Conference on Mining and Ecology in the Arid Environment, March 22 to 27, 1970, Ramada Inn, Tucson, Arizona : vi

In this way, the first written mention of physiosphere probably goes back to the American geologist William C. Peters. Ernst Neef himself only used the term in his own publication two years later:

"All of these three abiotic (inorganic) spheres [lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere] are subject to strict laws of nature and should be summarized as the physiosphere."

- Ernst Neef : geography and environmental science. In: Petermann's geographical communications. 116, 1972, p. 83.

In the same year the physiosphere was used again by another German-speaking geographer. The establishment of the term progressed further when Neef shortly afterwards published a pioneering collaboration with other specialist colleagues that explicitly dealt with geographical specialist terminology and in which the physiosphere also appeared. After that, the written mentions increased noticeably.

In the mid-1980s, the geoscientific concept of the physiosphere lost its frequency of use. This was mainly due to a specific competing Geo sphere-term , of the French geoscientists de Pierre Teilhard Chardin declined and represented an exact synonym for Physio sphere. Teilhard de Chardin's term can also be found, for example, in the title of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program , which was launched in 1986 and is still in operation today. The use of the geoscientific concept of the physiosphere fell behind - although the physiosphere, in contrast to the geosphere, only has a single geoscientific concept, so that the possibility of misunderstanding can be ruled out.

Content and scope

The physiosphere in the composite of the earth spheres.

The physiosphere comprises the three natural and abiotic earth spheres of the lithosphere , the hydrosphere and the atmosphere . Now the lithosphere, as the outer rocky mantle of the earth, extends from the peaks of the highest mountains down to the Gutenberg discontinuity , which in some areas can be over 100 km deep. However, based on current knowledge, this depth is exceeded by the hydrosphere because water resources can even be assumed with some certainty for the transition zone between the upper and lower mantle . The atmosphere extends on the other hand in the opposite direction, forming a thick more than 100 km of air layer eventually into interplanetary space loses .

Since the physiosphere encompasses all three of these earth spheres, at first glance it would have an enormous extent. However, this is not the case. For just as the physiotope includes the abiotic environment of a local biocenosis, the physiosphere includes the abiotic environment of the global - that is, the entire terrestrial - biocenosis. However, this global habitat is limited by the survival possibilities of terrestrial living beings. Because living beings are not immune to very extreme temperatures, pressures and radiation values. In this way, the habitat of terrestrial creatures ends approximately 60 km above the earth's surface in the lower mesosphere . Beyond that, it is too dry and too radiant for even the most robust microorganisms. The habitat continues to end about 5 km below the earth's surface in the upper lithosphere. Beyond this, the pressures and temperatures are too high, even for extremely resistant microbes (→ biosphere - vertical extension ).

With the existence of life forms, the spatial boundaries of their living space, i.e. their abiotic environment, are also determined. Since the terrestrial organisms cannot exist above 60 km in the atmosphere and below 5 km in the lithosphere, the physiosphere ends here together with their range. Both together - the terrestrial organisms in their entirety and their entire inanimate environment - form a huge global ecosystem. This ecosystem is called the ecosphere in its global extent :

Ecosphere	global biocenosis      Physiosphere  ecospheric section of the lithosphere     ecosphere section of the hydrosphere     ecosphere section of the atmosphere

Individual evidence

1. ^ E. Neef: Topological and chorological working methods in landscape research. In: Petermann's geographical communications. 107, 1963, pp. 249-259.
2. ^ H. Readers: Landscape Ecology . Stuttgart 1997, pp. 145, 147-148.
3. ↑ H.-P. Blume, GW Brümmer, R. Horn, E. Kandeler, I. Kögel-Knabner, R. Kretzschmar, K. Stahr, B.-M. Wilke: Scheffer / Schachtschabel · Textbook of soil science . Heidelberg 2010, p. 363.
4. ^ WC Peters (ed.): Proceedings: Of the Conference on Mining and Ecology in the Arid Environment, March 22 to 27, 1970, Ramada Inn, Tucson, Arizona . Tucson 1970.
5. ^ E. Neef: Geography and Environmental Science. In: Petermann's geographical communications. 116, 1972, p. 83.
6. ^ E. Neef: Geography and Environmental Science. In: Petermann's geographical communications. 116, 1972, pp. 81-88 and panel 3.
7. ^ H. Hambloch: General Anthropogeography. In: Geographic Knowledge. 31, 1972. Supplement to Geographical Journal. 60, 1972, p. 7.
8. ^ G. Haase, E. Neef, H. Richter, H. Barsch: Contributions to the clarification of terminology in landscape research. Leipzig 1973.
9. ↑ H. Klug: The landscape as a geosystem. In: Writings of the Natural Science Association for Schleswig-Holstein. 43, 1973, p. 42.
10. ↑ L. Finke: Why study vegetation geography today ? In: Geographical Rundschau. 25, 1973, p. 130.
11. ^ E. Neef: Geography and geological development problems. Human activity and its significance for geological evolution. In: Journal of Geological Sciences. 2, 1974, p. 919.
12. ↑ H. Barsch: On the identification of the earth's shell and its spatial structure in landscape science terminology. In: Petermann's geographical communications. 119, 1975, p. 83.
13. ↑ H. Naumann-Tümpfel: Comments on the geographical aspect of ecosystem research. In: Geographical Reports. 82, 1977, p. 61.
14. ↑ H. Klug, R. Lang: Introduction to Geosystem Theory . Darmstadt 1983, p. 46.
15. ↑ K.-H. Busch, D. Uhlmann, G. Weise: Engineering ecology . Jena 1983, pp. 24, 26.
16. ^ H. Readers (ed.): Dictionary General Geography . Munich / Braunschweig, 2005, p. 291.
17. ↑ H. Barsch: On the identification of the earth's shell and its spatial structure in landscape science terminology. In: Petermann's geographical communications. 119, 1975, p. 83.
18. ↑ N. Schmerr: The Gutenberg Discontinuity: Melt at the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary. In: Science. 335, 2012, p. 1480.
19. ↑ Anna Kelbert, Adam Schultz, Gary Egbert: Global electromagnetic induction constraints on transition-zone water content variations. In: Nature . 460, 2009, pp. 1003-1006.
20. ^ E. Neef: To some questions of the comparative landscape ecology. In: Geographical Journal. 59, 1970, p. 165.
21. ^ E. Neef: Geography and Environmental Science. In: Petermann's geographical communications. 116, 1972, p. 83 and plate 3.
22. ↑ H. Naumann-Tümpfel: Comments on the geographical aspect of ecosystem research. In: Geographical Reports. 82, 1977, pp. 60-61.
23. ↑ L. Finke: Why study vegetation geography today ? In: Geographical Rundschau. 25, 1973, p. 130.