Background
GUBKIN, Ivan was born on September 21, 1871 in village Pozdnyakovo, Murom Uyezd, Vladimir Province. Son of a peasant.
Geologist and petroleum specialist
GUBKIN, Ivan was born on September 21, 1871 in village Pozdnyakovo, Murom Uyezd, Vladimir Province. Son of a peasant.
1890 graduate Kirzhach Teachers’ Seminary. 1898 graduate St. Petersburg Teachers’ Institute. 1910 graduate St. Petersburg Mining Institute.
From 1910 associate. Geological Committee. From 1918 with Main Petroleum Committee and held exec posts in central Soviet organs directing oil industry and geological services. 1919-1924 simultaneously chairman, Main Shale Committee, then director, Shale Ind Board.
1920-1925 chairman and sci director, Special Commission for the Study of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly, then chairman, Council for Oil Ind. 1930-1936 chairman. Council for the Study of Soviet Production Resources. From 1920 professor, 1922-1930 rector, Moscow Mining Academy.
From 1930 rector, Moscow Oil Institute. 1924-1934 founder-director, Oil Research Institute. From 1934 director, Institute of Combustible Minerals, USSR Academy of Sciences.
From 1936 simultaneously vice president, USSR Academy of Sciences and from 1937 chairman of its Azer branch. From 1920 foundcr-ed, journal Neftyanoye i slantsevoye khozyaystvo (from 1925 Neftyanoye khozyaystvo). 1908 began research work, studying mineral deposits on northern shore of Lake Ladoga and in Maykop oil-bearing area (North Caucasus).
1912-1913 in works on geology and oil content of Maykop area suggested a new method of mapping subterranean relief of oil-bearing strata. Was the first to establish special configuration of oil deposits later known as “shoestring deposits”. Geological explorations conducted after 1917 solved a number of major problems.
Proposed hypothesis covering rules of distribution and origin of mud volcanoes and the connection between them and oil deposits. 1921 recommended a detailed survey of the Volga-Ural area as a promising new oilfield. Later directed surveying work there.
1932 produced a detailed plan for and then directed oil prospecting in the West Siberian plain, the Kuznetsk Basin, the Minusinsk Depression, the Baikal area and the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In his classic work Ucheniye о nefti (The Science of Oil) (1932) he summed up the results of his research on the origin of oil and the conditions for the formation of oil deposits. While directing USSR geological service headed several commissions on the study and exploitation of USSR natural resources.
Instrumental in the development of the raw materials base of the Ural-Kuznctsk Combine, Karaganda and Great Altay, and in the industry development of Siberia, the Far East, Geo, Turkm, Maritime Kray, Arctic areas, etc. From 1932, as chairman of the Commission for Studying the Quarternary period, organized and directed work along these lines. Co-founder, International Association for the Study of Quarternary Deposits in Europe.
1932 organized its 2nd Conference in Leningrad, over which he presided. Member, Soviet Section of above Association. 1933 led Soviet deleg at 16th Session, International Geological Congress, Washington.
1937 elected president, 17th International Geological Congress, Moscow. 1936 attended Brussels International Peace Congress. Institute of Geology of Azer Academy of Sciences and Moscow Oil Institute were named after him.
Religious faith contradicts people’s efforts to obtain the truth about nature and a human being.
Marxism–Leninism as the only truth could not, by its very nature, become outdated.
Member, USSR Academy of Sciences from 1939. Communist Party member from 1921.