Vol 67 Iss. 2

All our lives we have been solving geologic problems - big and small, difficult and easy. Many of them we solve successfully - one, another, a third, and we begin to think, we gladly think that someday all geological problems will be solved.

In the last third of the last century in the geology of the Anthropogenic (Quaternary period) there was a radical breakdown of the basic ideas: the theory of continental glaciations, which replaced the drift theory, became established.

The sixties were marked by new finds of deposits of volcanogenic formations, which were unexpected even for such countries where gold mining has a long and instructive history; I mean, in particular, the Union of South Africa and the United States of America.

The study of the peculiarities of platform Paleogene-Neogene coal accumulation and coal formation provides abundant material for the construction of a general theory of coal formation due to the relative proximity in time to modern peat formation.

Let's try to look 50 years ahead. The development of prospecting and exploration in the future 50 years will be sharply different from the past. The modern scientific and technological revolution should also affect geological exploration.

It is known that all objects in geology have limits both in space and time. These limits are not infinite. Their boundaries are of different character, and the types of boundaries are close for objects and phenomena changing both in time and in space.

In the fraternal family of republics of the great Soviet Union, the Armenian SSR is the smallest in terms of territory - only about 30 thousand km2, its population is 2.5 million people. This is only 0.13% of the territory and 1% of the population of the Soviet Union. However, due to the exceptional richness of the Armenian subsoil with mineral raw materials, the specific weight of the Armenian SSR in reserves and production of a number of important metallic and non-metallic minerals is much higher than these figures.

In geological research of the Eastern Transbaikalia and the Far East an outstanding role belongs to the students of the Mining Institute N. P. Anosov, I. A. Lopatin, N. G. Meglitsky and other brave pioneer explorers.

The structures framing the Siberian Platform are contiguous with the Ural structures by a well-defined system of meridional deep faults extending from Kazakhstan (the Tokrau fault) across the West Siberian Plate to the Taz Bay and thence to the St. Anna Trough in the Arctic Ocean.

Metallogeny as a science has been especially successfully developed over the last 25 years in the Soviet Union after the publication of the seminal works by Yu. A. Bilibin...

Water is the main driving force of inorganic life on the Earth. The state, structure, properties and composition of water depend on its temperature. The temperature of surface and underground natural waters of the Earth varies within very large limits and is subject to latitudinal climatic, altitudinal orographic and depth zonality. Hence the extreme diversity of natural waters and their interaction with the Earth's shells.

In the predictive evaluation of ore-bearing areas, the researcher faces two tasks - what to look for and where to look? A sufficiently clear answer to this can be obtained if the entire set of geological, geophysical and geochemical data is used, and the nature of these data and their relative role depend on the stage of prognostic assessment.

Only 50 years ago in the world were known single massifs composed of the original complex of ultramafic-alkaline rocks and carbonatites. Now there are more than 200 of them, and it should be expected that their number in the coming decades will increase significantly. The search for and study of such massifs are increasingly expanding both in the USSR and abroad, mainly due to the discovery of large and sometimes unique deposits of tantalum-niobates, iron, apatite, phlogopite, etc.

All living organisms exist in certain habitats. But of special interest is not just the range of a species or genus, but the territory (or water area) where its representatives first appeared. This spatial unit can be called the primary areal of emergence.

To solve such problems, the efforts of many specialists from different fields of knowledge are needed. It is impossible to solve the problems related to this topic in one article. However, let us try to identify some of the most important issues that require resolution today and outline ways to solve them.

For the geologist it is important to know not just the chemistry of this or that section of the Earth's crust, but its development in historical terms, including the evolution of the chemistry of magmatic formations in time. In other words, the essential importance of dynamic petrochemistry becomes.

Mineral extraction is increasingly based on deposits with complex and very complex hydrogeological conditions. Such are, for example, deposits of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly, Kansko-Achinsky and Dneprovsky coal basins. Sokolovsko-Sarbai group (iron ore), Predkarpattya sulfur-bearing basin and many others.

One of the new, successfully developing scientific directions of engineering geology is engineering geology of mineral deposits. The field of research of this direction includes a wide range of geological issues and practical problems arising in the development of various mineral deposits: ore, coal, mining and chemical raw materials, construction materials, etc.

Explosive operations carried out in wells include: analysis of the basics of the physics of the explosion and its mechanical effect; calculations of explosive charges and electric explosive network; description of means and methods of carrying out the explosion (torpedoing, perforation); study of geological and hydrogeological factors affecting the explosion; hydrogeological calculations of wells in the zone of action of the explosion and safety techniques for its implementation, etc.

The general doctrine of symmetry owes much of its development to crystallographers and mineralogists who worked within the walls of the Leningrad Mining Institute. First of all, we should recall the achievements of the brilliant scientist E. S. Fedorov (1853-1919).

The problem of evolution of pegmatite types can be considered in several aspects.Comparison of typomorphic features of rock-forming minerals of pegmatites indicates that these features vary naturally within individual pegmatite bodies, pegmatite fields and pegmatites belonging to different formations.

Iceland spar, which is a transparent variety of calcite, is characterized by a number of important properties that determine the areas of its use in science and technology, as well as the features of the study of deposits, their industrial development and processing of crystals...

For many years (1930-1950) it was believed that within the crystal-bearing provinces quartz veins and nests with quartz crystals are placed sporadically and, as a rule, singly. Therefore, the reserves of piezo-optical raw materials were not calculated, and exploration and mining works were of ineffective seasonal character.

An outstanding event in the development of paleontological knowledge in Russia was the inauguration of the Russian Paleontological Society on May 5, 1916. The first organizational meeting was held a little earlier - on March 1. The charter was signed by 52 people. The initiators of the Society, its organizers and most active members were N. N. Yakovlev, A. A. Borisyak, M. D. Zalesky, A. N. Krishtofovich, M. V. Pavlova, A. N. Ryabinin, P. I. Stepanov and M. E. Yanishevsky, who were members of the first Council of the Society.

The Mineralogical Society, founded in 1817, throughout its long existence has been closely connected with the Mining Institute, its professors and students. In the work of the Mineralogical Society from the first years took part figures of the Mining Institute, in particular Vasily M. Severgin and Dmitry I. Sokolov, who made a very valuable contribution to the development of geological and mineralogical sciences.