Leonid Pustovalov

Born July 26 (Aug. 8), 1902, in Moscow; died there Nov. 15, 1970. Soviet geologist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1953 and member of the CPSU from 1944.

Pustovalov graduated from Moscow University in 1924. In 1928 he organized and headed the geochemical laboratory of the Moscow Division of the Geological Committee. From 1934 until 1962 he was a professor in the subdepartment of the petrography of sedimentary rocks at the Gubkin Institute of the Petrochemical and Gas Industry in Moscow. From 1943 to 1953 he was head of the division of the petrography of sedimentary rocks at the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and from 1953 to 1960 he served as deputy chairman of the Council for the Study of Productive Forces (SOPS) of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and headed a number of multipurpose expeditions. In 1961, with the assistance of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the Ministry of Geology and Protection of the Earth’s Interior of the USSR, Pustovalov organized the Laboratory of Sedimentary Minerals (LOPI), which he directed until 1970.

Pustovalov’s principal works deal with the petrography and geochemistry of sedimentary rocks. In 1940 he published the monograph The Petrography of Sedimentary Rocks, for which he received the State Prize of the USSR in 1941. The book stimulated research on the formation of sedimentary rocks and sedimentary minerals. Pustovalov worked out hypotheses on the differentiation of sedimentary material and the periodicity of sediment accumulation and developed the idea of sedimentary geochemical facies. He received the Order of Lenin, three other orders, and various medals.