SCIENTIFIC AND METHODOLOGICAL GROUNDS OF MEDICAL GEOLOGY

Medical Geology – is a scientific branch of geology that studies the impact of geological environment and technogenic changes on human health and life. Geological environment (the object of this study) and its geodynamics have been the determining factors that influence the biota. At the present stage of technogene, the geological environment, as well as natural and techno-natural processes significantly affects human health. The actual material that affects human health is the result of field and laboratory studies within the appropriate geological and related environments. The most optimal method of assessing the impacts is a comprehensive geologic-medical mapping of natural and man-made systems with different scales and purpose. This can be done according to three levels of geological and medical research: exploration estimated geologic-medical mapping of health, previous specialized geologic-medical mapping and detailed geologic-medical mapping. Logic, cartographical, mathematical and geologic-medical modelling are performed separately. As a result of work carried out there were obtained indexes of direct and indirect impacts on the “geological environment – the human body” system.

The interaction conditions of humans as a biological system with the geological environment were analyzed in such areas:

• surface and underground hydrosphere, which influence the human organism due to drinking water consumption, insufficient chemical composition of which causes over 80% of diseases;

• landscape-geochemical spherethat indicates the influence of certain chemical elements on the functioning of systems soil–plant–human body, soil–plant–animal–human body, etc;

• geophysical sphere, which is a result of global, regional and local transformations that define the formation of electromagnetic fields, radiation and other conditions that have instant impact on human.

The results of geological mapping determines the range of potential diseases that may hurt people living within the certain type of geological environment. Knowing the characteristics of geological processes that affect human health, it is possible to take management actions related to the limit, localization and exclusion of the negative impact of geological processes on human body.