Dmitrii Mushketov

Who was Dmitrii Mushketov?

Dmitrii Ivanovich Mushketov was a Russian geologist and paleontologist who was born in St Petersburg, the son of Ivan Vasil'yevich Mushketov, a famous explorer and professor at the Mining Institute. This brilliant geologist was one of the victims of the Great Terror.

His early education by his mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna Mushketova, gave him a fluency in German, French, and English, which allowed him later in life to travel to Western Europe, to correspond with foreign specialists, and to represent Soviet geology abroad. He entered the Mining Institute in 1899 and graduated with honours in 1907.

D. I. Mushketov's geological interests were very wide including the worldwide study of tectonics and seismology, but he concentrated his work in Central Asia, covering also the fields of stratigraphy, geomorphology, glaciers, and mineral resources. His scholarly output was prodigious, with "more than 50 scientific works, several textbooks and manuals included, before 1926". Between 1909 and 1916 he carried out the geological survey of eastern Fergana which contributed to the geological map of Central Asia. His name is particularly well known for the high-quality revisions and additions that he made to each edition of the textbook on physical geology that was originally written by his father.