soil - Lublin

OXYGENOLOGY - A NEW SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINE
Stępniewski W., Stępniewska Z.
THE CONCEPT
Oxygenology has been defined by Stępniewski and Stępniewska (1998) as the
scientific discipline related to the presence and the role of oxygen in nature on
Earth. It constitutes a branch of environmental sciences and comprises issues of
storage, transport, generation, absorption, turnover, functions and measurement of
oxygen content in the environment. The name of this new discipline is analogous to
that of hydrology.
The proposal of identification of oxygenology as a separate branch of science
was justified not only by the unique role of oxygen as the most abundant component
of the lithosphere and as an exceptional component, on the cosmic scale, of
the atmosphere of our planet, but also by the need for a holistic approach to the
oxygen related problems faced in aquatic, wetland and dry-land ecosystems because
of their common nature and structure.
Oxygen plays an essential role in the life of all macro- and microorganisms, as
well as in the biochemical and chemical processes occurring in environment.
Having limited our interest only to Earth’s oxygenology (i.e without oxygenology
related to other planets), and more precisely only to the contemporary oxygenology
(omitting paleooxygenology related to previous geological periods) such
subbranches as atmospheric oxygenology, aquatic oxygenology, lithospheric oxygenology
and biooxygenology have been distinguished. The aim of this paper is to
present only few selected examples of the issues involved in the oxygenology as
presentation of the entire scope of this discipline would require several books. As
an illustration of this fact is the book devoted solely to soil oxygenology (Gliński
and Stêpniewski, 1985) made reference to more than 820 publications.
ATMOSPHERIC OXYGENOLOGY
Oxygenology of atmosphere is related to the problems of oxygen distribution,
production, absorption and turnover in the atmosphere as well as to the formation,
distribution and reactivity of ozone in the troposphere and stratosphere, etc. Within
the atmospheric oxygenology such research areas as. tropospheric oxygenology
and stratospheric oxygenology can be distinguished.
AQUATIC OXYGENOLOGY
Hydrooxygenology or aquatic oxygenology has been defined as the oxygenology
of the hydrosphere. It comprises issues of oxygen generation, absorption,
transformation, distribution, storage, and transport in aquatic media. Within hy-
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