Khitarov, Nikolai

Born Sept 20 (Oct. 3), 1903, in Piatigorsk. Soviet geochemist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1964). Member of the CPSU since 1949.

Khitarov graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in 1930. From 1929 to 1953 he worked at the All-Union Scientific Research Geological Institute. Between 1941 and 1944 he was head of the department of metals of the All-Union Commission on Reserves of Mineral Raw Materials. In 1953 he became head of the laboratory of the origin of magmatic processes, which he had organized at the Vernadskii Institute of Geochemistry and Analytic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Khitarov’s principal works deal with experimental studies of various processes of interaction between the earth’s crust and upper mantle. Khitarov is one of the pioneers in the development of experimental geochemistry in the USSR (1931). Some of his research has been concerned with the determination of geochemical signs of earthquakes (1973).

Khitarov received the Vernadskii Prize (in 1960) and the A. E. Fersman Prize in 1970. He has been awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.