OPENING REMARKS

A. A. VOROBYEV

(Rector of the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute)

Esteemed comrades!

The geological conference on the study of the gold deposits of Siberia, dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute, has convened at a historic moment in the life of the country, when the XXIII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has concluded; it summed up the results of the fulfillment of the seven-year plan for the development of the national economy in our country and defined the tasks of the new five-year plan. In the new five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR, a major role is still assigned to geologists. The directives of the XXIII Congress emphasize that an important national-economic task of the new five-year plan should be considered the acceleration of the development of the productive forces in the regions of Siberia and the Far East. This conference is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the founding of TPI—the first technical higher educational institution of Siberia, the third in Russia after the Leningrad and Kharkov polytechnic institutes. In those years the city of Tomsk was the first and only city of science in Siberia. At present, scientific research and higher education are widely disseminated in Siberia, and the Tomsk higher educational institutions strive to occupy no lesser place among the large number of scientific institutions.

Our institute has played a positive role in the development of the productive forces of Siberia, in the disclosure of its rich mineral resources, and in the organization and development of various branches of industry. Here, first of all, one must note the enormous role of Vladimir Afanasyevich Obruchev and Mikhail Antonovich Usov—the founders of the Siberian school of geologists. From the depths of this school there emerged and spread in world science the theories of facies and formational analysis of magmatic rocks and mineral deposits, and the tectono-stratigraphic method of distinguishing geological formations and analyzing them.

An enormous contribution was made by Academician Usov and his pupils to the study and development of Kuzbass and to the creation of the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Combine. Usov’s pupil—Academician Satpaev—created in Kazakhstan a major school of geologists, which in a short time revealed

the richest mineral resources of this region. In Siberia, in the Far East, there are many talented researchers who have come from the Tomsk school of geologists, around whom young geologists are grouped.

It should be noted that the first scientifically substantiated forecasts for oil and gas in the West Siberian Lowland were developed by the former head of the Department of Historical Geology, Professor Korovin, who was posthumously awarded the Lenin Prize for these works. The scientific searches in the Irkutsk coal basin, the Kansk-Achinsk basin, and others are associated with the names of Tomsk geologists, Professors Korovin and Aksarin.

Siberian geologists have uncovered within the territory of the region the Tomsk iron-ore basin, unique in its scale, and a large deposit of quartz-ilmenite sands. Today Tomsk geologists face the tasks of discovering new and still newer oil and gas fields, supplying industry with deposits of construction raw materials, finding new coal-bearing areas on the recently discovered continuation of Kuzbass to the north, in Tomsk Oblast (the substantiation of this had already been given by Academician Usov), and using indications of deposits of gold and polymetals to search for new deposits, etc. We gratefully recall the work of Tomsk geologists during the war, when their discoveries of mercury, molybdenum, tungsten, and other deposits helped the country overcome difficulties connected with the temporary loss of Nikitovka and other mines. In Tomsk, certain interesting theoretical investigations were carried out by Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Professor F. N. Shakhov, Corresponding Member Yu. A. Kuznetsov, Professor K. V. Radugin, Professor A. M. Kuzmin, Professor V. A. Khakhlov, and Professor I. K. Bazhenov.

One of the old scientific directions in geology is the study of the geology and conditions of formation of gold deposits. This direction was laid down by the works of V. A. Obruchev in the form of many-volume geological sketches of the gold-bearing regions of Siberia. Major studies in this field were carried out by A. Ya. Bulynnikov and Corresponding Member F. N. Shakhov, who are present here. A number of geologists are known for their discoveries of new deposits and ore occurrences—D. I. Kalinnikov, S. S. Il’enok, S. V. Mainagashev, A. M. Khazagarov, and others.

In our institute and at Tomsk University, significant groups of geologists have formed who work in the field of the geology and genesis of gold ore deposits. Among other things, the gold-bearing character of the south of Tomsk Oblast is being studied. Scientific and production organizations—the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and TsNIGRI, SNIIGGiMS, the Zapsibzoloto trust, the West Siberian and Krasnoyarsk geological administrations, and others—are also carrying out varied investigations in this direction.

The mutual exchange of new information in the field of gold geology, of new ideas, theories, and facts, which will take place at the opening conference, will be of benefit and will serve as an impetus to still broader work using new research methods. In Tomsk, new physical research methods can be widely used. Tomsk has a large number and variety of elementary-particle accelerators; there is a nuclear reactor. They can be used for activation analysis in general and for photon-neutron analysis in particular. We have laboratories of electron paramagnetic and nuclear resonance, infrared spectrometry, mass spectrometry, and others.

I invite you to the laboratories of TPI. You will find much that is interesting and useful for your work in the geological, chemical, physical, nuclear, beneficiation, and other laboratories.

Joint work at the conference will enrich the staff of TPI and will be useful for the development of geological research at TPI. At the conference we would like to find common paths for collaboration on comprehensive work aimed at solving major scientific problems. We would like to establish closer ties with industrial geological organizations.

Allow me to welcome all our dear guests, the participants in the geological conference, and to wish you every success in your work. TPI is glad that the opportunity has arisen to help you gather to resolve important questions in the development of Soviet geology.