Editing Mikhail Lomonosov (section)

===Chemistry and geology===
In 1759, with his collaborator, academician Joseph Adam Braun, Lomonosov was the first person to record the [[freezing]] of [[mercury (element)|mercury]] and to carry out initial experiments with it.<ref>{{Cite arXiv |last1=Lomonosov |first1=Mikhail |last2=Shiltsev |first2=Vladimir |date=2018-01-03 |title=Mikhail Lomonosov. Meditations on Solidity and Fluidity of Bodies(1760). English translation and commentary by V.Shiltsev |class=physics.hist-ph |eprint=1801.00909 |language=en}}</ref> Believing that nature is subject to regular and continuous [[evolution]], he demonstrated the [[life|organic]] origin of [[soil]], [[peat]], coal, [[petroleum]] and [[amber]]. In 1745, he published a catalogue of over 3,000 minerals, and in 1760, he explained the formation of [[iceberg]]s.{{sfn|Menshutkin|1952|p=}}

In 1763, he published ''On The Strata of the Earth'' – his most significant geological work.<ref>''Lomonosov M.V.'' On the strata of the Earth: a translation of "O sloiakh zemnykh" / translated by S.M. Rowland, S. Korolev. Boulder: Geological Soc. of America, 2012. 41 p. (Special paper; 485)</ref> This work puts him before [[James Hutton]], who has been traditionally regarded as the founder of modern geology. Lomonosov based his conceptions on the unity of the Earth's processes in time, and necessity to explain the planet's past from present.<ref name="Vernadsky"/><ref name="Rowland"/>