Vol 67 Iss. 2

All our lives we solve geological problems — big and small, difficult and easy. Many of them we solve successfully — one, another, a third — and we begin to think, we think with pleasure that someday all geological problems will be solved.

In the last third of the last century, in the geology of the Anthropogene (Quaternary period), a radical revolution of the basic concepts took place: the theory of continental glaciations, which replaced the drift theory, became established.

The 1960s were marked by new discoveries of deposits of volcanogenic formations, which proved 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. It seems to me that attention to gold-silver mineralization sharply increased after the discovery in the Soviet Union of a gold-bearing province associated with the Okhotsk-Chukotka volcanogenic belt, and after intensive study by Soviet scientists of the ore potential of volcanogenic belts. The study of deposits of various formations of the Okhotsk-Chukotka volcanogenic belt, begun even before the discovery of commercial deposits and based on purely theoretical premises, is extremely important for solving problems of ore formation.

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

Let us try to look 50 years ahead. The development of prospecting and exploration in the next 50 years will differ sharply 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 in time. These limits are not infinite. Their boundaries are of a different character, and the types of boundaries are similar 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 territory — only about 30 thousand km², and 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, owing to the exceptional richness of Armenia's subsoil in mineral raw materials, the share 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 Eastern Transbaikalia and the Far East, an outstanding role belongs to graduates 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 conjugated with the Ural structures along a clearly defined system of meridional deep faults extending from Kazakhstan (the Tokrau fault) across the West Siberian plate to Taz Bay and from there to the St. Anna Trough in the Arctic Ocean.

Metallogeny as a science developed especially successfully over the last 25 years in the Soviet Union after the publication of the fundamental works by Yu. A. Bilibin. The attempt to relate the development of ore formation to the regular evolution of mobile zones — the formation of sedimentary-volcanogenic sequences, intrusive and effusive rocks — is a major contribution to science. The principles proposed by Yu. A. Bilibin for dividing magmatic complexes and ore deposits into three or five stages (early–middle–late or initial–early–middle–late–final) were used as the basis for compiling metallogenic maps.

Water is the main driving force of inorganic life on 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 wide 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 predictive evaluation of ore-bearing areas, the researcher faces two tasks — what to look for and where to look? A fairly clear answer to this can be obtained provided that 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 the predictive assessment.

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

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

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

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

The extraction of minerals is increasingly based on deposits with complex and very complex hydrogeological conditions. Such are, for example, the deposits of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly, the Kansk-Achinsk and Dnieper coal basins, the Sokolovsko-Sarbai group (iron ore), the Carpathian sulfur-bearing basin and many others.

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

Blasting operations carried out in wells include: an analysis of the basics of explosion physics and its mechanical effect; calculations of explosive charges and the electric firing circuit; a description of the means and methods of conducting a blast (torpedoing, perforation); a study of geological and hydrogeological factors affecting the explosion; hydrogeological calculations of wells in the zone of the explosion's effect and safety precautions during blasting, 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, one should recall the achievements of the brilliant scientist E. S. Fedorov (1853–1919).

The problem of the evolution of pegmatite types may be considered in several aspects. A comparison of the typomorphic features of rock-forming minerals of pegmatites indicates that these features change regularly within individual pegmatite bodies, pegmatite fields and pegmatites belonging to different formations. ...

Iceland spar, 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 studying deposits, their industrial development and crystal processing...

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

An outstanding event in the development of paleontological knowledge in Russia was the solemn inauguration of the Russian Paleontological Society on May 5, 1916. The first organizational meeting was held somewhat earlier — on March 1. The charter was signed by 52 people. The initiators of the Society, its organizers and the most active members were N. N. Yakovlev, A. A. Borisyak, M. D. Zalessky, A. N. Krishtofovich, M. V. Pavlova, A. N. Ryabinin, P. I. Stepanov and M. E. Yanishevsky, who became 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 graduates. In the work of the Mineralogical Society from the first years took part figures of the Mining Institute, in particular Vasily Mikhailovich Severgin and Dmitry Ivanovich Sokolov, who by their works made a very valuable contribution to the development of geological and mineralogical sciences.