On August 9, 1968, the Leningrad Mining Institute suffered a heavy loss: Vitaly I. Bodylevsky, Professor of the Department of Historical Geology, passed away. Vitaly Ivanovich gave fifty years of his life to the Mining Institute and during these long years trained and educated many hundreds of geologists, became a leading specialist in the field of paleontology and stratigraphy of the Mesozoic, a scientist of world renown.