20世紀是以地質知識的一个新的領域——地球化学的誕生和蓬勃發展而聞名的。这門科学的奠基人是杰出的俄罗斯学者維尔納茨基和他的学生和战友A.E.費尔斯曼。还在这門科学發展的第一个階段,化学元素在地壳中的分布原則就已經引起了研究者的注意,而这个原則到如今仍然是地球化学的基本命題之一。有关这些最重要的化学元素如矽、鋁、鉄、鎂、鈣、鈉和鉀的分布狀况的知識有助于地質学家闡明整 The 20th century is famous for the birth and flourishing of geochemistry, a new field of geological knowledge. The founder of this science is the distinguished Russian scholar Vernautsky and his student friend and comrade A.E. Feldsman. Still in the first phase of this scientific development, the principle of the distribution of chemical elements in the earth’s crust has drawn the attention of researchers, and this principle is still today one of the basic propositions of geochemistry. Knowledge of the distribution of these most important chemical elements, such as silicon, aluminum, sodium, magnesium, calcium, sodium and potassium, helps geologists clarify