Geological Institute GIN

a scientific research institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR organized on the initiative of academician V. A. Obruchev in Leningrad in 1930 on the basis of the Peter I Geological Museum.

In 1934 the Geological Institute was moved to Moscow and, on the initiative of Academician A. D. Arkhangel’skii (director from 1934 to 1939), was merged with the F. Iu. Levinson-Lessing Petrographic Institute and with the M. V. Lomonosov Institute of Geochemistry, Mineralogy, and Crystallography. It then became known as the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1956 the Institute of Geological Sciences was divided into the Geological Institute and the Institute of the Geology of Ore Deposits, Petrography, Mineralogy, and Geochemistry. GIN is a leader in the study of the basic problems of tectonics (including the compiling of tectonic maps), lithology (including comparative lithological research), stratigraphy (spore-and-pollen analysis of ancient strata and the stratigraphy of the Upper Precambrian), and the history of geology. Much credit for the development of these studies must be given to Academician N. S. Shatskii (director from 1956 to 1960). In the past decade GIN has also worked in fields such as the geochemistry of sedimentary formations, the geology of the ocean floor, comparative planetology, geothermal studies, paleomagnetism, and geophysical and mathematical methods in geology. Scientists working at the Institute include Academicians V. V. Menner, A. V. Peive, A. V. Sidorenko, N. M. Strakhov, and A. L. Ianshin and Corresponding Members P. N. Kropotkin and M. V. Muratov. Results of the institute’s research have been published in its Trudy (Transactions) since 1930 (from 1937 to 1955 this was the geological series of the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR) and also in journals and separate monographs. In 1969 the Geological Institute was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.