Sheinmann, Iurii

Born June 17 (30), 1901, in Kiev; died Apr. 4, 1974, in Moscow. Soviet geologist. Doctor of geological and mineralogical sciences (1946). Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1973).

Sheinmann graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Mines in 1927. Between 1923 and 1938 he worked on the Geological Committee and conducted studies in Transbaikalia, the Tien-Shan Mountains, and Sinkiang. Between 1939 and 1946 he worked on a study of the geological structure, tectonics, and magmatism of the northern part of the Siberian Platform. Beginning in 1947, he worked at various geological institutions in Siberia and Moscow and conducted field studies in the Altai and Saian mountains and in various areas of the northeastern part of the USSR. From 1960 he worked at the O. Iu. Shmidt Institute of Earth Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Sheinmann’s main works were devoted to general problems of tectonics, the clarification of the relationship between magmatic and tectonic processes, and the origin of magmas, particularly alkaline magmas. Sheinmann developed the idea of the earth’s abyssal structure, the tectosphere, which predetermines the appearance and development of geosynclines.