areology n.

the study of the geology of the planet Mars

  • 1877 The Planet of War in Littell's Living Age 4 Aug. 297/1 page image

    If we could safely compare terrestrial with Martian geology, or, let us say, geology with areology, we might almost be tempted to find in the present prevalance of a tint belonging to one of the earlier of our terrestrial formations an argument in favor of the theory that Mars passed through fewer stages of development during its life-bearing condition than our earth.

  • 1958 ‘J. Wyndham’ Thin Gnat-Voices in New Worlds Science Fiction July 102 page image John Wyndham bibliography

    ‘One of our main objects…is to bring in a preliminary report on the geology of Mars.’ ‘Areology,’ he corrected me. ‘You can’t possibly talk about the geology of Mars. Doesn’t make sense.’

  • 1976 F. Pohl Man Plus in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Apr. 27/1 page image Frederik Pohl bibliography

    Don Kayman was…the world’s most authoritative Areologist—which is to say, specialist in the planet Mars…. He was also a Jesuit priest. He did not think of himself as being one thing first and the other with what part of him was left over; his work was Areology, his person was priesthood.

  • 1993 K. S. Robinson Red Mars (1993) 221 Kim Stanley Robinson bibliography

    Another part of the mystery: no one had ever explained why the northern and southern hemispheres were so different, it was the problem in areology, a solution to which might prove the key to explaining all the other enigmas of the Martian landscape, as tectonic plate theory had once explained so many different problems in geology.

  • 1993 K. S. Robinson Red Mars (1993) 217 Kim Stanley Robinson bibliography

    The canals had been sky areology; and many more bad hypotheses had been formulated in the same way, hypotheses that were only now being tested with the rigor of ground areology.

  • 1993 G. Bear Moving Mars 56 Greg Bear

    ‘Why didn’t it get turned into marble or something?’ I asked, partly to demonstrate I was not totally ignorant of areology.

  • 1993 G. Bear Moving Mars 18 Greg Bear

    You'll be all over the Triple for shooting areology students on a field trip. Great for your career.

  • 2013 B. Bova Mars Farts in New Frontiers (2014) 266 page image Ben Bova bibliography

    ‘Hey, you guys are the geologists. I thought you were happy to drill down that deep.’ ‘Overjoyed…. And here on Mars we’re doing areology, not geology.’


Research requirements

antedating 1877

Earliest cite

"The Planet of War", in Littell's Living Age

Research History
Bill Mullins submitted an 1868 cite from an anonymous article "The Planet of War" in the magazine "Littell's Living Age", October 3, 1868, apparently reprinted from an earlier publication in Cornhill Magazine. (A re-check found this date was probably an error; that date is of the example of areography, and the correct date of the Planet of War example is 1877.)
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2013 cite from Ben Bova.

Earliest cite in the OED database: 1881

Last modified 2021-02-01 23:57:22
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.