Although the term biosphere was introduced by Eduard Suess in 1875, the one who really coined it with its current meaning was the Russian geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945) in the early 20th century. Vernadsky said that the biosphere was the covering of life, that is, the area of the earth's crust occupied by "transforming organisms." Thus, he conceived life as a planetary phenomenon that allows the transformation of solar energy in increasingly complex and diverse forms.
"Humanity, as living matter, is inseparably connected with the energy-material processes of a specific geological envelope of the Earth, its biosphere," wrote Vernadsky. "Humanity cannot be independent of the biosphere physically, not for a minute."
