Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute
Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute
(full name, Sergo Ordzhonikidze Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute), the leading geological engineering institution of higher learning in the USSR. It was founded in 1930 as a successor to the geological prospecting department of the Moscow Mining Academy and the soil geology division of the physico-mathematical department of Moscow State University. In 1932 the institute was named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze. In 1936 the geological prospecting department of the Moscow Nonferrous Metals and Gold Institute was made part of the institute.
The development of various schools of scientific thought at the institute has been associated with the work of such scientists as A. P. Pavlov, V. I. Vernadskii, I. M. Gubkin, V. A. Obruchev, A. D. Arkhangel’skii, E. V. Milanovskii, G. F. Mirchank, N. M. Fedorovskii, A. E. Fersman, N. S. Shatskii, S. P. Savarenskii, A. G. Betekhtin, V. I. Smirnov, V. V. Menner, G. N. Kamenskii, V. A. Priklonskii, M. V. Muratov, V. V. Belousov, and M. I. Agoshkov.
The Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute has (1973) departments of geological prospecting, geophysics, hydrogeology, and deposit exploration and exploitation methods. It also has evening and preparatory divisions experimental testing grounds, a graduate program, 30 subdepartments, three sectorial laboratories, mineralogical and geological museums, and a library with 300, 000 volumes. In the 1972–73 academic year, the institute had an enrollment of 3, 200 students and a faculty of about 300 instructors, including two corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 48 professors and doctors of sciences, and approximately 150 docents and candidates of sciences. The institute is authorized to accept doctoral and candidate’s dissertations for defense. Since 1958 it has published the journal Geologiia i razvedka (Geology and Exploration) in the series Izvestiia vysshikh uchebnykh zavedenii (News of the Institutions of Higher Learning). The institute has trained more than 11, 000 specialists. It was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1969.
I. F. GRIGOR’EV