Iurii Aleksandrovich Kosygin

Born Jan. 9 (22), 1911, in St. Petersburg. Soviet geologist, specialist in tectonics. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1970; corresponding member, 1958).

After graduating from the Moscow Oil Institute in 1931, Kosygin worked for the Turkmen Oil Trust from 1931 to 1935. In 1935 he entered the system of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, working at the Institute of Combustible Minerals (1935–41), the Geological Institute (1945–58), and the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1958–70) and serving as director of the Khabarovsk Complex Scientific Research Institute (1970) and director of the Institute of Tectonics and Geophysics (Khabarovsk, from 1971).

Kosygin’s major works deal with the geological structure of oil-bearing regions of the USSR, experimental tectonics, the application of geophysics and the drilling of orientation wells in solving problems of geology, the tectonics of Precambrian formations, and general questions of the structure and development of the earth’s crust. Kosygin studied distribution areas of salt domes in the USSR and developed a theory of salt tectogenesis. He participated in the compilation of tectonic maps of the USSR (1952 and 1956), a map of the Precambrian tectonics of Siberia and the Far East (1962), and a map of the tectonics of the Precambrian of the continents (1971). He is conducting research on the use of mathematical methods and computers in geology. Kosygin has been awarded the Order of Lenin, three other orders, and a number of medals.