A quick look at the reference list of this textbook (initially conceived for Italian
university students) is sufficient to appreciate the leading role played by North
American scientists in the development of geochemistry, and it is a great honor
for me to present my appraisal of this fascinating discipline to readers whose
mother tongue is English.
The fascination of geochemistry rests primarily on its intermediate position
between exact sciences (chemistry, physics, mathematics) and natural sciences.
The molding of the quantitative approach taken in physical chemistry, thermodynamics,
mathematics, and analytical chemistry to natural observation offers enormous
advantages. These are counterbalanced, however, by the inevitable drawbacks
that have to be faced when writing a textbook on geochemistry: 1) the
need to summarize and apply, very often in a superficial and incomplete fashion,
concepts that would require an entire volume if they were to be described with
sufficient accuracy and completeness; 2) the difficulty of overcoming the diffi-
dence of nature-oriented scientists who consider the application of exact sciences
to natural observations no more than models (in the worst sense of that term).