March 20 marks the 90th anniversary of the leading Russian scientist in the field of geology and geophysics of the ocean - chief researcher of the Laboratory of Geophysical Fields of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology RAS, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation Alexander Moiseevich Gorodnitsky - the geophysicist and the poet.

Alexander Moiseevich Gorodnitsky was born in Leningrad on March 20, 1933. As a child, he survived the first winter of the blockade and was evacuated from besieged Leningrad in April 1942 with his mother along the Road of Life and further to Omsk, where his father worked in military hydrography. In 1945 the family returned to Leningrad. In 1947, Alexander Gorodnitsky entered the Studio of Literary Creativity of the Leningrad Palace of Pioneers (the head of the studio was the poet Gleb Semyonov).

In 1951, after graduating from high school with a gold medal, he entered the Geophysical Faculty of Plekhanov Leningrad Mining Institute (now St. Petersburg Mining University), from which he graduated with honors with a degree in geophysics.

In 1953, Alexander Moiseevich, together with Vladimir Britanishsky and Alexander Gdalin, organized a literary association (LITO) of the Mining Institute.

In 1954 A.M. Gorodnitsky took part in his first geological expedition - to Central Asia, to the Gissar Range, where he was looking for uranium.

In 1957, Alexander Moiseevich began his career at the Research Institute of Arctic Geology as a geophysicist, senior geophysicist, team leader and party leader. He worked in the northwestern part of the Siberian platform, in the areas of Turukhansk, Norilsk and Igarka, where he was engaged in the search for copper-nickel ores and copper mineralization using geophysical methods. He is one of the pioneers of the Igarsk copper ore field.

As a geophysicist A.M. Gorodnitsky took part in oceanographic expeditions in the Atlantic, Okhotsk, Baltic and Black Seas, including on the Kruzenshtern expeditionary sailboat. He was one of the first in our country to carry out marine magnetic measurements with a towed magnetometer on a ship with a magnetic hull in the North Atlantic in 1962–1963. Together with E.M. Litvinov and N.N. Trubyatchinsky A.M. Gorodnitsky is a co-inventor of a new method for measuring the electric field of the ocean.

In 1967 Alexander Moiseevich together with V.D. Fedorov and A.N. Paramonov, while working in the Black and White Seas, discovered the bioelectric effect of phytoplankton in the sea.

In 1968, Alexander Moiseevich defended his Ph.D. thesis at Moscow State University on the topic "The use of magnetometry and electrometry for studying the ocean floor."

From 1969 to 1972 headed the Laboratory of Marine Geophysics at the Research Institute of Arctic Geology.

In 1972, Alexander Moiseevich moved to Moscow and joined the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences as a senior researcher in the Department of Lithospheric Plate Tectonics. The department was then headed by Oleg Georgievich Sorokhtin, an outstanding scientist, an active propagandist of a new direction in the Earth sciences at that time - the theory of lithospheric plate tectonics, who had a great influence on the formation of A.M. Gorodnitsky as a scientist. From 1985 to 2005 Alexander Moiseevich headed the Laboratory of Geomagnetic Research, and since 2005 he has been the Chief Researcher of the Laboratory of Geophysical Fields of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology RAS.

Over the years of work for the benefit of domestic science, A.M. Gorodnitsky participated in many oceanological expeditions to various regions of the World Ocean, was at a drifting station at the North Pole (1964) and in Antarctica (1972). Alexander Moiseevich repeatedly sank to the bottom in underwater manned vehicles (for the first time in 1978 in the Pacific Ocean on Hermit Atoll). In 1988, on an expedition on the ship "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh" in the North Atlantic, on the deep-sea submersible "Mir-1", he dived to a depth of 4.5 kilometers.

The main scientific interest of Alexander Moiseevich all the years was the geomagnetic field of the Earth and its use for studying the geological structure and tectonic evolution of the oceanic lithosphere. Based on a joint analysis of paleomagnetic, geological, and paleoclimatic data, he, together with L.P. Sonenshine, compiled a series of maps - paleogeodynamic reconstructions of oceans and continents from the Cambrian to the present day. He was the first to propose and develop a method for calculating the thickness of the oceanic lithosphere from linear magnetic anomalies in combination with measurement data of the gravity field and heat flux density, and calculated the first map of the thickness of the lithosphere of the World Ocean.

A.M. Gorodnitsky proposed an original model for the formation of volcanic seamounts and islands in the ocean, according to which the height of paleovolcanoes is determined by the thickness of the oceanic lithosphere. Together with O.G. Sorokhtin proposed a new hypothesis for the death of coral reefs and the formation of guyots in the Late Cretaceous. In 1982 A.M. Gorodnitsky defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic "The structure of the oceanic lithosphere and the formation of seamounts."

A.M. Gorodnitsky is one of the founders of paleomagnetic modeling of seamounts based on magnetic and bathymetric survey data. As a result of magnetic modeling, the age of a number of paleovolcanoes in the North Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean was determined, and the kinematics of the Pacific Plate in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic were calculated.

Alexander Moiseevich made a great contribution to the study of the nature of magnetic anomalies in the ocean and their connection with the geological structure and tectonic evolution of the oceanic lithosphere. Based on a joint analysis of the results of magnetic modeling based on geomagnetic surveys in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge zone and data from petromagnetic studies of rock samples that make up the oceanic crust, he developed a new petromagnetic model of the oceanic lithosphere. In accordance with this model, a significant contribution to the magnetic field anomalies in the ocean, including linear ones, along with basalts, can be made by serpentized peridotites of the lower layer of the oceanic crust, which are formed during the hydration of upper mantle hyperbasites by ocean water.

He proposed and substantiated an original model of the petromagnetic structure of the zones of slow spreading ridges, in which serpentinite protrusions are intensively formed, associated with the change of the eruptive phase of discrete spreading - tectonic.

A.M. Gorodnitsky and co-authors are successfully developing a new gradient measurement system in marine magnetometry, which does not depend on the distorting effect of geomagnetic variations, which is especially important in high-latitude regions. This made it possible to study the fine spatial structure of the anomalous magnetic field in water areas based on the use of high-precision differential magnetic surveys. An original instrumental and methodological complex was developed for measuring the heading gradient. The use of this complex has shown its high efficiency for studying the fine structure of an anomalous magnetic field, as well as for searching for oil, gas and solid minerals in the offshore seas. In addition, this equipment and methodology, within the framework of the Baltic International Environmental Project, was successfully used to detect sunken ships with chemical munitions under the sediments in the Baltic Sea.

Alexander Moiseevich conducts extensive teaching work at the International University in Dubna and at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Under his leadership, dissertations of 6 candidates of sciences were defended. He repeatedly traveled by invitation to lecture at universities in Germany, the USA, Belgium and Israel. For many years, he regularly participated with reports in the work of leading international congresses and symposiums.

A.M. Gorodnitsky is actively engaged in promoting the achievements of modern domestic science and art on television. He is the author and host of the 34-hour science fiction television series Atlantes in Search of Truth. In recent years, this series has been shown many times on the Kultura TV channel and has a high viewership rating. Gorodnitsky is the author of the popular science books Search for Truth (2016), Myths and Secrets of Science (2019) and Science, the Ocean and We(2022).

For scientific merits, Alexander Moiseevich was repeatedly awarded diplomas of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Federation Council. In 1998, he was awarded the Knight of Science badge, in 2004 the RANS Cross of Merit, in 2003 the Polar Star badge, many state medals and the Order of Friendship (2019). In 1999, by decision of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the minor planet No. 5988 Gorodnitskij was named in his honor.

A.M. Gorodnitsky is one of the founders of the art song genre, he is widely known in our country and abroad as a poet, bard, and author of memoirs. He has published several dozen discs with author's songs and more than 60 books of poetry and prose. In 1970, for the first time and for many years, he became chairman of the jury of the Grushinsky Festival of Author's Songs. His name is on a par with the names of Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vysotsky and Yuri Vizbor. Alexander Moiseevich is a member of the Writers' Union of Russia (1972) and the International PEN Club (1998). Winner of the Tsarskoye Selo Art Prize (1998). The first laureate of the Bulat Okudzhava State Prize (1999), the first laureate of the Yevgeny Yevtushenko Literary Prize “More than a Poet” (2019). The poems and songs of Alexander Gorodnitsky have been translated into the languages of many peoples of the world, included in anthologies of Russian poetry and school textbooks on Russian literature. He is a full member of the Academy of Russian Literature. Numerous articles, monographs, candidate and doctoral dissertations are devoted to his poetry. The song "Atlanta" has become the official anthem of the largest museum in the world - the State Hermitage. A pass in the Sayan Mountains is named after him.

Fifty-one years A.M. Gorodnitsky works at Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, where he joined in 1972, already having extensive experience in practical expeditionary work, including long-distance ocean voyages, as well as scientific research. Today A.M. Gorodnitsky is one of the leading Russian scientists in the field of ocean geology and geophysics, Doctor of Geology and Mineralogy (1982), Professor (1991), Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (1992), Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation (2005), Chief Researcher of Shirshov Institute Oceanology of RAS, he is the author of more than 260 scientific papers on geophysics and tectonics of the ocean floor.

The Directorate of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the editorial staff of the scientific journal Oceanology and Journal of Oceanological Research, colleagues and friends congratulate Alexander Moiseevich on his anniversary, wish him good health, optimism, inspiration, success in all spheres of life and creativity. May all scientific plans be realized and all poetic ideas come true!

 

 

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