Zenkovich, Vsevolod

Born Feb. 4 (Jan. 22), 1910, in Moscow. Soviet oceanographer and geomorphologist. Doctor of geographic sciences (1943), professor (1941), member of the CPSU (1953), director of the seacoast-zone laboratory of the institutes of oceanography (1944–71) and geography (1971–74) of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Zenkovich laid the foundations for the Soviet school of coastal research. He substantiated the principle of the morphological and dynamic unity between the seacoast and the underwater coastal slope, and he put a number of research methods into practice. He developed a classification of ocean coasts for the Marine Atlas (vol. 2, 1953). His most important works are The Dynamics and Morphology of Seacoasts (1946)and Foundations of the Theory of the Development of Seacoasts (1962; Lenin Prize, 1964). Zenkovich has been a member of the International Commission on Coastal Geomorphology since 1960.