Author: by Viktor KOROTEYEV, Academician, Director of Zavaritsky Geology and Geochemistry Institute, Ural Branch of the RAS Modernization of this country's economy in the early years of Soviet government, involving large-scale industrialization and rapid development of productive forces called for a comprehensive exploration of natural resources in the country's various regions, and elaboration of scientific recommendations on their fast and rational application. A special role in this all-out effort was assigned to the Ural region, including the Ural Mountains, Russia's oldest mining center, with its enormous natural wealth, including some of unique minerals. The then government leaders and scientists realized this very well. page 11 The late 1920s and early '30s saw giant industrial projects built at Magnitogorsk, Berezniki and Solikamsk, with the Ural Engineering Plant deserving a special mention. New mines and blast furnaces cropped up. Production of iron, copper and gold in the old industries was going up, mines were sunk to recover aluminum, nickel ore, chromites, potassium, sulfur, asbestos, talcum, coal, and many rare metals, and wells were driven to pump oil. Metalworking advanced on a renovated technological basis. In 1932, the Academy of Sciences held field sessions in Sverdlovsk (today Ekaterinburg) and Novosibirsk to promote closer links between academic science and industry Shortly afterward, a branch of the national Academy of Sciences was set up in the Ural area, under its first chairman, A. Fersman,(*) an Academy member and mineralogist by training. As one of this nation's leading industrial centers, the Ural was severely short of researchers who could explore its geological structure and sum up the results of previous geological and geophysical studies. To deal with these complex problems at close range, a Geochemistry Institute was set up at the Ural Branch in 1932. Its priority research areas included, above all, theoretical geochemistry ... Читать далее