Grigory Aleksandrovich Gamburtsev (; – June 28, 1955) was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

seismologist Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic ...

and

academician An academician is a full member of an artistic, literary, engineering, or scientific academy. In many countries, it is an honorific title used to denote a full member of an academy that has a strong influence on national scientific life. Accor ...

from

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

who worked in the area of seismometry and

earthquake prediction Earthquake prediction is a branch of the science of geophysics, primarily seismology, concerned with the specification of the time, location, and magnitude of future earthquakes within stated limits, and particularly "the determination of par ...

Life

Gamburtsev was born on March 23, 1903, in

. He graduated from the

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

in 1926. From 1938 onward, he worked at the

Geophysical Institute The Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks conducts research into space physics and aeronomy; atmospheric sciences; snow, ice, and permafrost; seismology; volcanology; and tectonics and sedimentation. It was founded in 1946 by a ...

of the

USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991. It united the country's leading scientists and was subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (u ...

, serving as its director from 1949 to 1955. In 1946, Gamburtsev became a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and in 1953 he became full member of the Academy. Gamburtsev developed a new design of

seismograph A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground displacement and shaking such as caused by quakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The out ...

s and created their theory.Гамбурцев Григорий Александрович

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

He proposed a new method for the

mineral exploration Mining engineering is the extraction of minerals from the ground. It is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, metallurgy, geotechnical engineering and surveying. A mining engineer m ...

, so called correlation refraction method, and the

deep sounding method Deep or The Deep may refer to: Places United States * Deep Creek (Appomattox River tributary), Virginia * Deep Creek (Great Salt Lake), Idaho and Utah * Deep Creek (Mahantango Creek tributary), Pennsylvania * Deep Creek (Mojave River tributary) ...

for monitoring the

Earth crust Earth's crust is its thick outer shell of rock, referring to less than one percent of the planet's radius and volume. It is the top component of the lithosphere, a solidified division of Earth's layers that includes the crust and the upper p ...

. He died on June 28, 1955, in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Honors

Gamburtsev received several government awards for his scientific work, including the

USSR State Prize The USSR State Prize () was one of the Soviet Union’s highest civilian honours, awarded from its establishment in September 1966 until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. It recognised outstanding contributions in the fields of science, mathem ...

(1941), the

Order of the Red Banner of Labour The Order of the Red Banner of Labour () was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to the Soviet state and society in the fields of production, science, culture, literature, the arts, education, sports ...

(1945), and the

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

(1953). The

Gamburtsev Mountain Range The Gamburtsev Mountain Range (also known as the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains) is a subglacial mountain range located in East Antarctica, just underneath the lofty Dome A, near the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility. The range was discovered b ...

, a range of sub-glacial mountains near

Dome A Dome A or Dome Argus is the highest ice dome on the Antarctic Plateau, located inland. It is thought to be the coldest naturally occurring place on Earth, with temperatures believed to reach . It is the highest ice feature in Antarctica, consi ...

in Eastern

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

, was discovered in 1958 by the

3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition The Third Soviet Antarctic Expedition (1957–59) was led by Yevgeny Tolstikov on the continent and included Czech future astronomer Antonín Mrkos; the marine expedition on the ''Ob'' was led by I V Maksimov. Two diesel-electric ships were used ...

and named after him in the same year; Val Gamburtsev, an oil deposit in

Nenets Autonomous Okrug The Nenets Autonomous Okrug (; ) also known as Nenetsia ( ) is a federal subject of Russia and an autonomous okrug of Arkhangelsk Oblast. Its administrative center is the town of Naryan-Mar. It has an area of and a population of 42,090 ...

, (part of

Arkhangelsk Oblast Arkhangelsk Oblast ( rus, Архангельская область, p=ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲskəjə ˈobɫəsʲtʲ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). It includes the Arctic Ocean, Arctic archipelagos of Franz ...

), is also named for him.

References

External links

G.A. Gamburtsev and the problem of earthquake prediction
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gamburstsev, Grigoriy 1903 births 1955 deaths Scientists from Saint Petersburg Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Stalin Prize Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Russian geophysicists Russian seismologists Soviet inventors Soviet physicists Soviet seismologists Russian scientists