Contribution of academician I.P. Gerasimov to soil science (early 1920s-1985)

Abstract

In 2015, we celebrate the 110 anniversary of Academician Innokentiy Petrovich Gerasimov - one among the most prominent scientists in the world of Earth Sciences. For 30 years from the moment he is no more with us, his contribution to soil science and soil geography became more discrete and continues to astonish people by the diversity of problems he touched on, by the perfect choice of most actual research spheres, by the in-depth comprehension of the essence of many phenomena. The milestones of his scientific activity are the following: perception of soil science as an interdisciplinary geo-biological and geographic science addressing to the origin, evolution and geography of soils, as well as to the mechanisms of pedogenesis, and all this is a core of the Dokuchaev School as Innokentiy Petrovich understood it. He was absolutely sure of the enormous and not fully disclosed potential of Dokuchaev soil science, which can efficiently synthesize the ideas of adjacent sciences concerning Earth and Life. The collection of articles in this issue represents the main lines in the scientific activity of I.P. Gerasimov in the field of soil science. This is soil genesis, cartography and geography, first of all, the huge work on compiling the State soil map of the country, scale 1 : 1 M; soils of arid lands and “distinctive” soils of Siberia, elementary soil-forming processes as driving forces of pedogenesis, soil classification, age and evolution of soils, fundamentals of radiocarbon dating of soil age. It is also worth to remind that Innokentiy Petrovich was permanently involved in soil science organization activities as Editor-in-Chief of the State soil map, President of the USSR Society of Soil Scientists, member of the Editorial Board of “Pochvovedenie” journal and Head of numerous scientific commissions

Keywords

• докучаевское почвоведение
• dokuchaev soil science