Vladimir Belousov

Who was Vladimir Belousov?

Vladimir Vladimirovich E. Belousov was an Earth scientist in the Soviet Union, and a prominent advocate of alternatives to the theories of plate tectonics and seafloor spreading during the period of the 20th century in which debate on these subjects was most intense.

Beloussov was head of the Geodynamics Department of the Institute of the Physics of the Earth in Moscow, a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and a professor at both the Moscow Geological Surveyance Institute and Moscow State University. He was also a Foreign Member of Geological Society of London.

During the 1960s he led three expeditions to the East African Rift to study continental structure and the Earth's mantle. These trips fuelled his idea that continental crust was transformed to oceanic crust by widespread processes involving basic magmas.

Although his theories were ultimately unsuccessful within the scientific community, he was an important figure in the development of the Earth sciences within the Soviet union following the Second World War.