Alexander Karpinsky

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Portrait of Aleksandr Petrovich Karpinsky examining mineral on 1947 U.S.S.R. stamp

Alexander Petrovich Karpinsky (Russian: Алекса́ндр Петро́вич Карпи́нский) (7 January 1847 (NS) – 15 July 1936) was a prominent Russian and Soviet geologist and mineralogist, and the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and later Academy of Sciences of the USSR, in 1917–1936.

[edit] Biography

Karpinsky was born in Turyinskiye Rudniki (now Krasnoturyinsk, Sverdlovsk Oblast), to a family of mining engineers. From 1857 to 1866 he was in the mining school in St. Petersburg and the last three years he attended the Mineralogical Institute, where he graduated in 1866. He studied and taught at the Mining Institute, St. Petersburg from 1869 to 1885. He was the imperial director of mining research from 1885 to 1916. Karpinsky was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1886, was elected its President in May, 1917, and held this title until his death. His main research was chiefly done in the Ural Mountains, and he completed the first geological map of European Russia. He was able to preserve much scientific equipment and many invaluable records during the Russian Revolution.

He is buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow.

[edit] Named in his honor

• The mineral karpinskyite
• The lunar crater Karpinsky
• The Karpinsky Group of volcanoes on Paramushir Island in the Kurils
• Mount Karpinsky, October Revolution Island in the Severnaya Zemlya group in the Russian Arctic
• Mount Karpinsky, Urals at 1878 m lies between the Tyumen Oblast and the Komi Republic in Russia
• The town of Karpinsk, Sverdlovsk Oblaston the east side of the Urals
• Karpinsky Russian Geology Research Institute [1]