Khain, Viktor

Born Feb. 13 (26), 1914, in Baku. Soviet geologist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1966). Member of the CPSU since 1943.

After graduating from the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute in 1935, Khain conducted research at various geological institutions in Azerbaijan until 1954. He was a professor at the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute from 1949 to 1954 and at Moscow University from 1961. In 1957 he became a senior research worker at the Institute of Geochemistry and Analytic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and in 1972, a senior research worker at the Geological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Khain’s chief works deal with regional geology (the Caucasus, Carpathians, and other areas), tectonics, petroleum geology, and the history of the geological sciences. Khain has proposed a classification of tectonic movements and the primary structural elements of the earth’s crust and has more precisely defined certain general regularities of the geosynclinal process. He is currently working on the problem of the principal stages of evolution of the earth’s crust. Khain is deputy editor in chief of lithological and paleogeographic atlases of the Russian Platform and its boundary areas and of the USSR. With A. B. Ronov, he has compiled the first maps of continental lithological formations. He is directing work on the compilation of international tectonic maps and since 1971 has been vice-chairman of the Commission for the Geological Map of the World.

Khain is an honorary doctor of the University of Paris and an honorary member of the geological societies of Bulgaria and France. He has been awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and various medals.