Mykola Andrusov

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Mykola Andrusov was born in Odessa. There he graduated from the Novorosiysky University. He worked at Yuryev (Tartu, Estonia) and Kyiv universities, the Geological Committee of Russia, the Higher Women’s Courses in St. Petersburg. He was a corresponding member (1910) and a member (1914) of St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. The last years of life Andrusov spent in Prague.

M. Andrusov is one of the founders of palaeontology, a science of ecological systems of bygone epochs. He investigated the Neogene sediments, marking out, in particular, the Meothic and Cimmerian layers of the Ponto-caspian territory, a number of tertiary strati-graphic units, tectonics and paleogeography of mountain systems of Europe and Asia, fossil reefs and organogene limestone. While studying tertiary sediments (Transcaucasia, Azov maritime regions, Northern Caucasus), M. Andrusov dis¬ covered some conformities to natural laws of oilfield formation. He drew up a paleogeographic

map of Neogene and antropo-gene of the Black Sea basin. On the bottom of the Black Sea he discovered the remains of posttertiary fauna of the Caspian type. He explained sharp changes in the Neogene fauna of the Black Sea as a result of abrupt changes in

the environmental climatic conditions. Andrusov worked out a detailed stratigraphy of oil and gas sediments of the Caucasus; described Kerch reefs and explained their origin; introduced the term onkoida to denote limestone of reef origin.

During expeditions the scientist investigated the Black Sea (1890), the Sea of Marmara (1894), and the Caspian Sea (1897), the Caucasus and the Balkans. Andrusov discovered the so-called dead zone of the Black Sea, i. e. saturation of its deep layers with hydrogen sulphide.

M. Andrusov was awarded the Lomonosov Prize of St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1897) for his monograph Fossil and Living Dreissensidae of Eurasia. Being guided by Darwin’s theory of evolution he explained the extinction of Neogene species and genera of molluscs and the development of progressive groups of the sea spineless. The extinction of molluscs was linked with a sharp change in the environmental ecological conditions, and their flourishing, with the preservation of relative stability of the environment.

Thanks to M. Andrusov’s works, study of geological structure of Ukraine rose to the level of world science.