Editing Vladimir Vernadsky (section)

==Scientific activities==
In 1898, Vernadsky moved to Moscow in order to teach at Moscow University. As head of the mineralogical office, he had the opportunity to restore the Freyesleben collection where he fully cataloged and systemized it.<ref name=":3" /> During his work as a professor at Moscow University, he conducted 65 field excursions across Russia with students to Siberia, Urals, Caucasus, and Crimea.<ref name=":3" />

Through his work, Vernadsky first popularized the concept of the [[noosphere]] and deepened the idea of the [[biosphere]] to the meaning largely recognized by today's scientific community. The word 'biosphere' was invented by Austrian geologist [[Eduard Suess]], whom Vernadsky met in 1911.

In Vernadsky's theory of the Earth's development, the noosphere is the third stage in the earth's development, after the [[geosphere]] (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the [[emergence]] of life fundamentally transformed the geosphere, the emergence of human [[cognition]] will fundamentally transform the biosphere. In this theory, the principles of both life and cognition are essential features of the Earth's [[evolution]], and must have been implicit in the earth all along. This systemic and geological analysis of living systems complements [[Charles Darwin]]'s theory of [[natural selection]],{{Citation needed|date=June 2008}} which looks at each individual species, rather than at its relationship to a subsuming principle.

Vernadsky's visionary pronouncements were not widely accepted in the West. However, he was one of the first scientists to recognize that the [[oxygen]], [[nitrogen]] and [[carbon dioxide]] in the Earth's atmosphere result from biological processes. During the 1920s he published works arguing that living organisms could reshape the planets as surely as any physical force. Vernadsky was an important pioneer of the scientific bases for the environmental sciences.<ref>Weart, S.R. (2003) ''The Discovery of Global Warming,'' Cambridge, Harvard Press</ref>

Vernadsky was a member of the [[Russian Academy of Sciences|Russian and Soviet Academies of Sciences]] since 1912 and was a founder and first president of the [[National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine|Ukrainian Academy of Sciences]] in [[Kyiv]], Ukraine (1918). He was a founder of the [[Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine|National Library of Ukrainian State]] and worked closely with the [[Tavrida National V.I. Vernadsky University|Tavrida University]] in [[Crimea]]. During the [[Russian Civil War]], he hosted gatherings of the young intellectuals who later founded the émigré [[Eurasianism]] movement.<ref>See Vernadsky's diaries in the "Works" section, summarized in Sergei Glebov. "Russian and East European Books and Manuscripts in the United States" in ''Russian and East European Books and Manuscripts in the United States: Proceedings of a Conference in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture'' (''Slavic and East European Information Resources'', Volume 4, Number 4 2003), eds. Jared S. Ingersoll and Tanya Chebotarev, The Haworth Press, 2003,  {{ISBN|0-7890-2405-5}} p. 29</ref>

In the late 1930s and early 1940s Vernadsky played an early advisory role in the [[Soviet atomic bomb project]], as one of the most forceful voices arguing for the exploitation of [[nuclear power]], the surveying of Soviet [[uranium]] sources, and having [[nuclear fission]] research conducted at his Radium Institute. He died, however, before a full project was pursued.

On religious views, Vernadsky was an [[atheist]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Margulis |first1=Lynn |author-link=Lynn Margulis |title=What Is Life? |last2=Sagan, Dorion |author2-link=Dorion Sagan |publisher=University of California Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-520-22021-8 |page=170 |quote=Both the French paleontologist-priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the Russian atheist Vladimir Vernadsky agreed that Earth is developing a global mind.}}</ref> He was interested in [[Hinduism]] and [[Rigveda|Rig Veda]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Neelakandan |first=Aravindan |date=21 February 2013 |title=Vernadsky, Noosphere and Vivekananda |url=http://centreright.in/2013/02/vernadsky-noosphere-and-vivekananda/#.VDAUHpbIbFE |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150530033248/http://centreright.in/2013/02/vernadsky-noosphere-and-vivekananda/#.VDAUHpbIbFE |archive-date=30 May 2015 |access-date=17 May 2015 |publisher=Centreright.in}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Yuva Bharati February 2012 &#124; Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan |url=http://prakashan.vivekanandakendra.org/periodicals/yuvabharati/2012/february |access-date=17 May 2015 |publisher=Prakashan.vivekanandakendra.org}}</ref>

Vernadsky's son [[George Vernadsky]] (1887–1973) emigrated to the United States where he published numerous books on medieval and modern Russian history.
[[File:Vladimir Vernadsky with family 1908.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Vernadsky family in [[Poltava]] in 1908. Right-left: Vladimir, his daughter Nina, wife Nataliia and her brother Pavlo, son George.]]
The [[Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine|National Library of Ukraine]], the [[Tavrida National University]] in [[Crimea]] and many streets and avenues in Ukraine and Russia are named in honor of Vladimir Vernadsky.

[[UNESCO]] sponsored an international scientific conference, "Globalistics-2013", at Moscow State University on 23–25 October 2013, in honor of Vernadsky's 150th birthday.