Sergei Smirnov

Born Sept. 4(16), 1895, in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, now Ivanovo; died Aug. 20, 1947, in Leningrad. Soviet geologist and mineralogist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1943; corresponding member, 1939).

Smirnov graduated from the Petrograd Institute of Mines in 1919. He was on the staff of the Geological Committee from 1919 to 1941. In 1930 he became a professor at the Leningrad Institute of Mines. Beginning in 1945, he headed the ore department of the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Smirnov’s principal works dealt with the mineralogy of ore deposits and with ore formation. He investigated the zoning of hydrothermal mineralization and the relation between such mineralization and magmatism. A new metallogenetic approach was introduced by him into the study of minerals. Smirnov paid particular attention to the practical importance of the cassiterite-sulfide group of tin-ore deposits. He discovered and described a number of deposits of iron ores, nonferrous metals, and rare metals. In 1946 he received the State Prize of the USSR for his discovery and study of several tin-ore deposits in the USSR. He trained a school of geologists specializing in ores.

Smirnov took part in the work of the All-Union Mineralogical Society and became its president in 1945. He was made an honorary member of the French Mineralogical Society in 1947. Smirnov was awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.