Head of Laboratory
Main Researcher
DSc (Physical and Mathematical Sciences)
Scientific leader of the Black Sea Experimental Range

Experimental Ocean Physics Laboratory
Ocean Physics
36, Nakhimovskii prospect, Moscow, 117997, Russia
+7 (499)124-63-92

Physicist, oceanologist, doctor of physical and mathematical Sciences (1998), since 1988 – head of the Laboratory of experimental physics of the ocean.

In 1976 he graduated from Physical faculty of Moscow state University, the Department of physics of sea and land waters. He was assigned to work in the Institute of Oceanology in the Laboratory of a famous oceanologist (later corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences) Konstantin Nikolaevich Fedorov. Under his leadership, Zatsepin participated in major naval expeditions, passed through all stages of growth from trainee-researcher to senior researcher.

In 1983 he defended the Ph. D. and in 1997 – his doctoral dissertation. After the sudden death of K.N.Fyodorov in 1988 Zatsepin became head of the Laboratory of experimental physics of the ocean.

The main direction of scientific activities of laboratory is a modeling of physical processes in the ocean. He made a significant contribution to the development of this direction in the Institute. He developed installations and placed experiments on the study of the formation of fine structure in a stratified fluid, dynamics and stability of eddies, fronts and boundary currents in a rotating fluid, as well as the processes of differential heat and mass transfer through the density boundary between the turbulent layers and the associated phenomena of underwater ice formation.

Established in these experiments, the physical laws were used to verify the results of relevant theoretical studies and for data interpretation of backlot observations of mesoscale and fine structure of ocean waters.

In recent years, he actively engaged in the study of water dynamics of the Black sea. He was the initiator of the international black sea drifter experiment, which allowed to identify some previously unknown features of the water circulation and in-basin exchange. In addition, he was able to establish regularities of the influence of unsteady wind effects (ekmanovskaya pumping) and the topography of the continental slope on the formation of different regimes of large - and mesoscale dynamics of the Black sea waters.

He is the member of the editorial Board of "Oceanology" and Expert Council of VAK on the Earth Sciences.

He is the author of 130 scientific papers.