Brief BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION ABOUT ACADEMICIAN OF RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, HONOURED PROFESSOR OF THE M. V. LOMONOSOV MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY, DOCTOR OF GEOLOGICAL - MINERALOGICAL SCIENCES, HONORARY PRESIDENT OF INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCE H&E VICTOR YEFIMOVICH KHAIN

Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and many national and international academies, outstanding scientist and geologist Professor Victor Yefimovich Khain is loved and respected by everyone who has ever met him. A great number of his pupils and followers feel deep gratitude and warmth for this wonderful person - humanist, sincere and honest, incredibly hard-working and responsive, in a fatherly manner diligent and attentive to his pupils, excellent teacher and mentor.

In this section we don’t set as an object to embrace, even briefly, the extensive scientific, pedagogical and scientific-organizational activity of the outstanding geologist of the present Victor Yefimovich Khain, because even the whole scope of this book would not be enough for it. This is just brief biographic information.

Victor Yefimovich Khain was born in the capital of Azerbaijan – in Baku, on 26 February, 1914. He graduated from the Geologic-research Department of the Mining Faculty of the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute (now Oil Academy). He worked in AzOILSEARCH till 1938. In 1938 he moved to the Azerbaijan Oil Scientific-Research Institute, where he worked until 1941. In 1940 at the Central Scientific-research Geological-research Institute (in Leningrad) he defended a Candidate’s dissertation. From 1941 to 1945 he was called up for military service in the Red Army and served in a regiment of the Baku Army of Anti-aircraft Defense until 1945.

In 1945 he changed to working at the Institute of Geology of Azerbaijan AS, where he was soon assigned as a head of department of regional geology, and at the same time he taught the geotectonics course at the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute. Under his direction there a monograph “Geology of Azerbaijan”, geologic and tectonic maps of Azerbaijan, was published. In 1947 he defended a Doctoral dissertation on Geologic Structure and of Oil-and-gas Content of the South-East Caucasus at the Institute of Geology of Azerbaijan AS. In 1949 he received the title of Professor in the Department of Geology of Oil and Gas and worked there until 1954, having published the fundamental monograph “Geotectonic bases of searching the oil”. In 1954 he moved to Moscow. The selfless work of the scientist-geologist was highly praised, and in 1966 V. Y. Khain was chosen as corresponding member of the AS of the USSR, and in 1987 as the Academician of the AS of the USSR on Geotectonics and Geophysics. In the same year he was honored with State Prize of the USSR.

In 1992 the AS of the USSR awarded him with the A. P. Karpinskiy gold medal.

In 1993 for the series of works ”Global tectonics of the Earth”, V. Y. Khain was honored with the first prize of M. V. Lomonosov.

V. Y. Khain is a member of editorial boards of some of the most authoritative Russian and international journals, such as “Geotectonics”, “Nature”, “Herald of MSU. Geology”, “News of Universities. Geology and Research”, etc. He was also the editor-in-chief of the journal “Geology”.

In 1995 V. Y. Khain was awarded with the State Prize of the Russian Federation for a number of fundamental scientific works.

Academician of the AS of the USSR, Academician of RAS, Laureate of the State Prizes of the USSR and the Russian Federation, V. Y. Khain is the author of more than 1000 scientific works, including about 60 fundamental monographs.

V. E. Khain is an honorable doctor of the Pier and Mary Curie Paris University, honorable member of the European Academy of Sciences, full member of the International Academy of Science H&E, member of the New-York Academy, honorable member of French, London, Bulgarian and American geological societies, member of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and a corresponding member of the International Committee on the History of Geological Sciences.

Academician V. Y. Khain was awarded the A. P. Karpinskiy gold medal, the Royal Belgium Academy of Science’s P. Furmarye gold medal, the Germany Geological Society’s Steinman medal, the French Geological Society’s Prestvich medal, the World Organization for Scientific Cooperation’s (WOSCO) Gold Medal and Diploma of the First Degree, and the International Academy of Science Health and Ecology’s Nobel Prize Laureate Pavlov gold pin.

In 2007 the Academician Victor Khain was chosen as the Honorable President of International Academy of Science H&E (Austria, Innsbruck).

In 2009 the Academician Victor Khain was chosen as the Honorable President of the World Organization for Scientific Cooperation (WOSCO, London).

The world-famous scientist in the sphere of geotectonics and geodynamics, participant and organizer of more than 600 scientific international and national congresses, conferences and meetings, has been to more than 50 countries of the world.

During recent years Victor Yefimovich devoted scientific research to the most important problems of humanity: the research of the cyclicity of seismic and volcanic activity and their connection with other geological and cosmic factors. His research into global changes of the geological environment allows us to look at the processes of climatic changes and geological life of the Earth from new vantage points.

V. Y. Khain is an outstanding scientist. He maintains close cooperation with many scientists of the world, and actively takes part in joint scientific research and international projects. With the scientific support of Academician Victor Khain the Global Network for the Forecasting of Earthquakes was created.