The word Gaia is an umbrella term that is derived from the Greek word meaning Goddess of the Earth. It has now come to symbolize "Earth-Mother," or "Living Earth," hypothesizing that the Earth acts like a "superorganism," with all its biological and physical systems cooperating to keep it healthy.

The Gaia concept evolved from the work of a few noted scientists. Initially the hypothesis was formulated by the eighteenth-century Scottish geologist James Hutton, who was the first to use the term superorganism in reference to the Earth. He asserted that it was essential to view Earth's systems as affecting and affected by a single organism, and pointed out that physiology would be the proper science to study this codependence in the planet's systems. Hutton became known as the father of geology after he published his Theory of the Earth, which pointed to volcanism as being the...