Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky

Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (born March 12 [Feb. 28, Old Style], 1863, St. Petersburg, Russia—died Jan. 6, 1945, Moscow) was a Russian geochemist and mineralogist who is considered to be one of the founders of geochemistry and biogeochemistry.

The son of a professor, Vernadsky graduated from St. Petersburg University in 1885 and became curator of the university’s mineralogical collection in 1886. In 1890 he became a lecturer on mineralogy and crystallography at Moscow University, where he earned his Ph.D in 1897. He served as a professor at Moscow University from 1898 to 1911. After the Russian Revolution he was active in scientific and organizational activities; he founded and directed (from 1927) the biogeochemical laboratory of the Academy of Sciences at Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

Vernadsky’s initial work was in mineralogy. He carried out highly detailed studies on aluminosilicates and was the first to correctly describe their chemistry and their structure, which forms the basis of many other minerals. He was also a pioneer in geochemistry—the measurement and study of the distribution and migration of the chemical elements and isotopes in the Earth’s crust. In this regard he gathered detailed data on the layers of the crust, described the migration of atoms in such layers, tried to explain the occurrence of chemical elements in those layers, and in general studied the formation of chemical compounds under the influence of geologic processes.

Vernadsky was one of the first scientists to recognize the tremendous potential of radioactivity as a source of thermal energy, and he was also one of the first to postulate the long-term heat buildup from radioactivity as a driving force behind many geochemical processes. His later years were taken up with the study of the contributions that life processes make to the atmosphere, and he correctly attributed to living things the creation of the oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere. He also studied the effects living things have on the chemistry of the Earth’s crust (e.g., the subsurface concentrations of certain elements due to biological cycles). Vernadsky is thus regarded as the founder of the theory of the biosphere (i.e., the total mass of living organisms, which process and recycle the energy and nutrients available from the environment).