Betekhtin, Anatolii

Born Feb. 24 (Mar. 3), 1897, in Strigino, Vologda Province; died Apr. 20, 1962, in Moscow. Soviet geologist and mineralogist; became an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (AN SSSR) in 1953 (corresponding member in 1946).

Betekhtin graduated from the Leningrad Mining Institute in 1924. He became a docent there in 1929 and a professor in 1937. He founded the mineragraphy course (the study of ores in reflected light under a microscope) at the institute. Betekhtin joined the Institute of Geological Sciences of the AN SSSR in 1937 and created its mineragraphy laboratory. In 1956 he moved to the academy’s Institute of the Geology of Ore Deposits, Petrography, Mineralogy, and Geochemistry.

His primary works are concerned with questions of the theory of ore formation and mineragraphy. Betekhtin developed the direction in ore investigation involving study of ore structures and the parageneses of minerals on the basis of the laws of physical chemistry and crystal chemistry. Betekhtin detected regular facies change in magnesium-bearing sediments and developed the theory of the formation of manganese ores (State Prize of the USSR, 1947). In 1958 he was awarded the Lenin Prize for his research on hydrothermal solutions and their nature and on ore-formation processes. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, and medals.