Mikhail Ivanovich Varentsov

Born Jan. 7 (20), 1902, in the village of Popovskaia, now in Ivanovo Oblast. Soviet geologist, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1953), and member of the CPSU since 1925.

In 1929, Varentsov graduated from the Moscow Mining Academy. He was a student of I. M. Gubkin. From 1949 to 1955 he was director of the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1956 he became the head of the laboratory in the Institute of Geology and Exploitation of Mineral Fuels of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. His basic works are on tectonics, stratigraphies, geological history, and the conditions of formation and natural laws of the distribution of oil and gas fields. Varentsov surveyed the comparative characteristics and appraised the prospects of the most important oil and gas regions and provinces of the USSR (“Second Baku,” Siberia, Northern Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Middle Asia, and Kazakhstan) and also of southeastern Europe, Africa, China, and elsewhere. He has been awarded two orders.