Nikolai Urvantsev

Born Jan. 17 (29), 1893, in the city of Lukoianov, in what is now Gorky Oblast. Soviet geologist. Doctor of geological and mineralogical sciences (1935), professor (1961). Honored Worker in Science and Technology of the RSFSR (1974).

Urvantsev graduated from the Tomsk Technological Institute in 1918. He was a discoverer of the Noril’sk Ore Region. Between 1919 and 1922, he led a geological prospecting party and discovered a cupronickel sulfide deposit at Mount Rudnaia, as well as a number of coal deposits. From 1930 to 1932, as the scientific leader of the Severnaia Zemlia expedition of the All-Union Arctic Institute, Urvantsev, together with G. A. Ushakov, carried out the first geographic and geological exploration of Severnaia Zemlia. From 1958 to 1967, Urvantsev was head of the geology department of the Institute of Arctic Geology.

Urvantsev’s main works deal with the geology of the Taimyr Peninsula, Severnaia Zemlia, and the northern Siberian Platform. Urvantsev wrote the book In Severnaia Zemlia. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Przheval’skii Gold Medal (1924) and the Great Gold Medal (1958) of the Geographical Society of the USSR, and various other medals.