Nikolai Ivanovich Andrussow

Nikolai Andrusov

Nikolai Ivanovich Andrussow ( Russian: Николай Иванович Андрусов ; * December 7th ^July / December 19,  1861 ^greg. In Odessa ; † April 27, 1924 in Prague ) was a Russian geologist and paleontologist . Due to his outstanding achievements, he became a member of the Russian and Ukrainian Academy of Sciences . Andrussow has achieved great merits in the research of geological connections between the Black Sea basin and the Aralo-Caspian lowland .

Childhood and early years

Nikolai Ivanovich Andrussow spent his childhood and youth in Odessa and Kerch . In the latter city he graduated from high school and was already very interested in nature observation. As a teenager he was collecting fossils in the Kerch area. He later studied geology and zoology in Odessa at the New Russian University founded in 1865 (today the National Ilya-Ilyich-Mechnikov University of Odessa ) . Here he used the knowledge he had already acquired in high school in these areas. Since 1882 the New Russian Natural Research Society has sent selected students to the Kerch peninsula to do geological fieldwork during the summer . As a result, Andrussov's first scientific work "Notes on geological research in the vicinity of the city of Kerch" was written. The collections established in the summers of 1882 to 1884 laid the foundation for his later interests and scientific work.

Study trip, early academic work and family

Miocene layers inclined by folding in the eastern Georgian Caucasus foothills (by David Gareji )

Thanks to a scholarship initiated by Professors O. Kowalewskowo and WW Salenski, he traveled through Central Europe and Russia in two years to get to know the most important scientific institutions and to collect other fossils.

In Vienna he met Eduard Suess , Melchior Neumayr and Viktor Uhlig and worked for a long time at the Imperial and Royal Natural History Court Museum . He also visited destinations in Germany, France and Italy. After his return, Andrussow completed the exams at his university at the end of 1888. The following year he made his first trip to the Caspian region and the region west of the Aral Sea, and later to the Black Sea region. At that time he was working as a laboratory assistant for the Geological Cabinet in Odessa. He submitted his dissertation in 1890 at the St. Petersburg University on the subject of "Kerch limestone and its fauna". Now an additional activity as a private lecturer began . The tasks in 1892 and 1893 brought him back to this region. He investigated the folds on the Kerch and Tamaner peninsula and their connection with the Caucasus .

He remained closely connected to his hometown Kerch. This was expressed in his voluntary advisory work for the City Duma in the planning of the new water pipeline from JenISCHE . As a result, his memory was preserved in a special way among the people of Kerch.

In 1895 Andrussow studied the Neogen formation in the region around Schemacha on the Pirssagat River and on the Marasinski Plateau. Similar deposits also occur near Naftalan , in the Eldaristeppe (Eastern Georgia), in Dagestan and near Grozny and were examined by him. In their deeper layers, they are often crossed by oil deposits.

During further expeditions in the same year he was able to discover them with the typical Aktschagyl layers (Dazi level) on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea , in the elevations north of Krasnovodsk . These connections were first described by him and in the treatises of the kaiserl. Society of Natural Scientists of St. Petersburg published in 1896 under the title “Report on the geological surveys carried out in the summer of 1895 in Baku Governorate and on the east coast of the Caspian Sea”.

Oil field in Baku with a Cossack patrol

This work encouraged the development of an oil industry in some regions. The first drilling in the Alt-Grozny drilling field was carried out in 1893. The New Grozny drilling field (Aldy) was opened in 1912.

When, in the summer of 1897, the Imperial Russian Ministry of Trade and Industry , headed by hydrologist IB Schpindler, sent an expedition to the Kara-Bogas-Gol Gulf of the Caspian Sea, N. Andrussow, A. Lebedinzew and A. Ostroumow took part. The aim was to research the salt deposits and the fish deaths observed there. The steamer Krasnovodsk brought the scientists with their equipment to this area. The assumption of the lifelessness of this water surface was refuted. On the bottom, a specific fauna was observed that had achieved a high level of adaptation to the enormous salt content. The water analyzes showed a high content of glauberite , furthermore astrakanite and thenardite were found. In addition, the absence of sodium chloride was recorded , which was regarded as a special feature of this deposit.

As a result of this expedition, the researchers noted the extent of this saltwater basin, which is unusual worldwide by comparison, and which has a very fluctuating salt content due to periodic flooding from the Caspian Sea. From this research, Andrussow derived important insights into the history and development of the entire Caspian-Black Sea basin structures.

The Challenger Expedition (1872–1876) examined processes on the sea floor. Andrussow wrote a summarizing article about this expedition in the Mining Journal in 1889 and used the findings for his further research trips in the regions of the Black and Caspian Seas to investigate the general geological and stratigraphic conditions on the seabed.

In 1899 Andrussow married Nadezhda Henrichowna (1861-1935), the daughter of Heinrich Schliemann . Their son Dimitrij Andrusov , who later became one of the most important geologists for Western Carpathian research and director of the Slovak Geological Institute in Bratislava, was born two years earlier . The marriage resulted in four more children, sons Leonid and Vadim and daughters Marianna and Vera.

The Andrussow family was friends with the Russian / Soviet petrograve and geologist Franz Loewinson-Lessing from their time together in Jurjew and Saint Petersburg and corresponded with him from later exile .

Andrussow's scientific work now spanned many geoscientific fields. By 1900 he had already presented numerous papers on stratigraphy , paleogeography , paleontology, paleoecology and oceanology . They are all characterized in a special way by their accuracy and attention to detail.

The systematic geological exploration of the Apsheron peninsula , as well as the entire Caucasus, began in 1901 with the work of the Geological Committee. In the summers of 1901 and 1902 Andrussow was engaged in geological explorations in the Schemacha district and was able to expand his knowledge of the Aktschagyl strata in this region. The ideas of the large-scale connections of the neogene sediment formations in the Crimean-Caucasus syncline were now increasingly formed. Based on this, the understanding of the geology of the oil deposits in the Caucasus developed .

Work in the Crimean region

Development of neogene sediment sequences in the Black Sea / Caspian Sea area according to N. Andrussow (approx. 1910)

In the summer of 1918 the Academy of Sciences sent him to the Crimea for geological work. The family lived in Kerch, so the necessary field work could be carried out in the coastal area of ​​the strait. However, the return to Petrograd was difficult due to the civil war and it was decided to stay in Kerch temporarily. This started his scientific work at the Tauride University of Simferopol .

Through a letter from Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadski , he learned of the acceptance of the hoped-for admission to the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences . The political situation did not allow a trip to Kiev .

Meanwhile, living conditions in Crimea began to become difficult. Some family members fell ill with typhus , and in October 1919 news of the death of their eldest son Leonid was received. Andrussov then suffered a stroke , which left one hand and one leg paralyzed. His health was so severely impaired that a future occupation was questioned. The family then decided to emigrate to France, because his wife owned a house in Paris from her father's inheritance . On March 25, 1920, the Andrussow family left the port of Sevastopol and took the steamer Aldo to Constantinople .

Exile and late years

In the spring of 1920 the family arrived in Paris after a stay in Constantinople. Here Andrussow resumed his work in small steps, he was employed in the geological office of the Sorbonne . The stay in Paris was a great financial and mental burden for the family. Andrussow was cut off from his fields of work, collections and all scientific literature. Letters to Wernadski and Loewinson-Lessing are testimony to everyday worries and requests for scientific literature.

In order to create a more favorable working and living environment for themselves, the family moved to Prague in 1922. Here Andrussow tried to work scientifically again, but had to realize that he had lost contact with his original fields of work and that the physical limitations continued to have an inhibiting effect. Affected by this tragic situation, he died in Prague on April 27, 1924.

In the same year, at the 3rd Congress of Academic Organizations in Prague, Russian scientists paid tribute to the life and work of Andrussov with a plenary session dedicated to him. His son Dimitrij Andrusov tried to get his father's work completed with approval.

Summary

Loose sediments on the Kuban

The most important detailed investigations by Andrussow deal with the deposits of the Neogene in the Pontic-Caspian regions between the Black and Caspian Seas and in the adjacent Trans-Caspian zones. They form a border with only a few interruptions that accompanies the Caucasus at its northern and southern foot.

These research results were an important basis for later exploration and development of oil deposits in new areas as well as for further stratigraphic research in the Soviet Union . Andrussow's fundamental statements are still internationally recognized today and have made a decisive contribution to the overall geological understanding of this region.

The sedimentary layers examined by him consist predominantly of clays , sands , limestones , sandstones and sedimentary rocks of a similar type interspersed with gypsum .

His son Dimitrij published a manuscript ("Послетретичная тирранская терраса в области Черного моря") of his father in 1925 with the help of the Russian geologist Vladimir Dmitrijewitsch Laskarew . In the series "Key fossils of the oil region in the Crimean-Kaukausgebirge" a compilation by LS Lawitashvili appeared in 1933 on Andrussov's work on the Apsheron layers. In the 1960s (beginning in 1961), selected works by Andrussov were published in a four-volume work in the Soviet Union for the purpose of honoring him.

Andrussow is the first to describe numerous fossil mollusc species, such as several species of the snail genus Melanopsis as well as species from the triangular clam family , including the recent Dreissena rostriformis bugensis .

On the moon of the earth a bump bears his name ( Dorsa Andrusov ). In the Black Sea, later continued by Andrei Dmitrijewitsch Archangelski , he investigated the mud deposits and Pliocene sediments, which contributed to further knowledge in the field of petroleum geology . In later recognition of their work, a part of the submarine mountain ridges in the Black Sea was named after both researchers, here the Andrussow Ridge (Andrusov Ridge).

Functions and stations

• 1896–1905 professor at the Imperial University of Jurjew in Dorpat, Estonia
• 1905–1912 professor at the University of Kiev
• 1910 (December 4) corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Physical-Mathematical Department)
• 1912–1914 Professor at the Women's College in Petersburg and member of the Geological Committee of the Commission for the Scientific Research of Russia (Chairman: Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky)
• 1914 (May 3) full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Physical-Mathematical Department, Geognosy and Paleontology)
• 1914–1918 director of the Geological and Mineralogical Museum of the Petrograd Academy of Sciences
• 1918–1920 professor at the Tauride University in Simferopol on the Crimean peninsula
• 1921–1922 laboratory work at the Sorbonne in Paris
• 1922–1924 worked at the Charles University in Prague

Memberships

• 1912 Paleontological Society

Selected Works

• N. Andrussow: La mer Noire. VII. Congr. Géol. Int., Guide XXIX. St. Petersbourg 1897.
• N. Andrussow: Fossils u. living Dreissensidae of Eurasia. St. Petersbourg 1897.
• N. Andrussow: Critical remarks about the origin hypotheses of Borporus ud Dardanelles. In. Sber. Nat. Ges. Dorpat 1901.
• N. Andrussow: A trip to Daghestan in 1898. Moscow 1901.
• N. Andrussow: Contributions to the knowledge of the Caspian Neogene. Pontic layers. In: Mém. you com. géol. Nouv. Series. No. 40, 1909.
• N. Andrussow: Contributions to the oligochaete fauna of the Kiev area. In: Sapiski Kievskawo Obschtschestwa Estestvoispytatelei (Mémoires de la Soc. Des Naturalistes de Kiev). Vol. XXIII, part 4. Kiev 1914.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Franz Ritter von Hauer: Annals of the Imperial and Royal Natural History Court Museum. 1887 Vol. II, Issue 3, p. 84.
2. ↑ Н. И. Андрусов (NI Andrussow): Избранные труды. (Selected works). (Изд-во АН СССР) Vol. 1, 1961; Vol. 2, 1963; Vol. 3, 1964; Vol. 4, 1965.
3. ^ Entry in Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature by the International Astronomical Union (IAU)
4. ↑ G. Melikadze1, E. Sakvarelidze, G. Tumanishvili, I. Khomeriki: The Black Sea and resources: Ecological aspects of anoxidal sediment basins. (PDF file; 4.0 MB) In: Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Workshop Report No. 201. Moscow (UNESCO) 2006, p. 39.
5. ↑ Howard Johnson et al. (Ed.): The nature and origin of compression in passive margins. London 2008, ISBN 978-1-86239-261-8 . (Geological Society, Special Publication 306)
6. ^ NI Andrusov: Sur l'état du bassin de la Mer Noire pendant l'époque pliocène. In: Akad. Nauk St. Petersburg Bull. 1893 Neue Serie, 3 (35), pp. 437-448.
7. ^ Palaeontological Journal 1, Issue 1, March 1914

literature

• В. И. Оноприенко: Николай Андрусов: Сдвиг истории и излом судьбы.
• AF v. Stahl, Walther Staub: Caucasus. Handbook of Regional Geology. V. Vol. 5. Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1923, DNB 362526559 .

Web links

• Portrait of Andrussow at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN) (Russian / English)
• Image and biographical notes (Russian)
• Article Nikolai Iwanowitsch Andrussow in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)http: //vorlage_gse.test/1%3D058849~2a%3D~2b%3DNikolai%20Iwanowitsch%20Andrussow