Although there is only one Eanh, the maturing of the Earth sciences had led to a fragmentation into subdisciplines that speak imperfectly to one another. To a student of the Earth, these are artificial distinctions, but even where there is cross-talk among disciplines, it is usually as noisy as static. Too often, one discipline s unproven assumptions or dogma are treated as firm boundary conditions for a theoretician in a slightly overlapping area.