Nikolaev, Viktor

Born Nov. 24 (Dec. 6), 1893, in Nizhny Novgorod, now Gorky; died Sept. 25, 1960, in Leningrad. Soviet petrologist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1946).

Nikolaev graduated from the Institute of Mines in Petrograd in 1918. From 1920 to 1947 he worked in the Geological Committee (now the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Geology). From 1933 to 1945, he was also a professor at the Middle Asian Industrial Institute. In 1947 he became a professor at the Leningrad Institute of Mines. In 1951 he became a scientific worker at the Precambrian laboratory of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. His major works were associated with the study of the magmatism, tectonics, and metallogeny of Middle Asia. He devoted special attention to the problem of abyssal magmatism and to the conditions of segregation of the volatile components of magma. He became president of the All-Union Mineralogical Society in 1955. He was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1958 for his paper Fundamental Problems in the Study of Magmatogene Ore Deposits (a collaborative work). He also received the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and medals.