International Geodetic and Geophysical Union

(IGGU). As of July 1, 1971, the IGGU combined the activities of seven international associations concerned with geodesy, seismology and the physics of the interior part of the earth, meteorology and the physics of the atmosphere, geomagnetism and aeronomy, the physical sciences of the ocean, scientific hydrology, and volcanology and the chemistry of the interior part of the earth.

IGGU was formed in 1919 in Brussels. It is one of the unions belonging to the International Council of Scientific Unions of UNESCO, and its members are groups of scientists from 69 countries. The Soviet Union has been a member of IGGU since 1955. The organization conducts large-scale international projects in the field of the study of the earth and near space. Among the IGGU’s projects are the International Geophysical Year, the International Geophysical Cooperation Year, the International Years of the Quiet Sun, the “Earth’s Upper Mantle,” the International Hydrological Decade, the Program to Investigate Global Atmospheric Processes, and the Program to Study Glaciers. The highest body of IGGU is the general assembly, which meets every four years. Between assemblies the work of IGGU is directed by an executive committee. Decisions adopted by IGGU are executed by the national committees of member countries (in the USSR, by the Interdepartmental Geophysical Committee under the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR).