Vernadski, Vladimir Ivanovich (1863–1945)

Russian scientist, a pioneer in the fields of geochemistry and biogeochemistry. He was professor of mineralogy at Moscow University 1898–1911 and from 1927 became director of the biogeochemical laboratory of the Leningrad Academy of Sciences. His work on the effect that living organisms have on the chemistry of the Earth's crust caused him to be regarded as the originator of the idea of the biosphere.

Aside from his scientific work, Vernadski was active in the democratic movement in tsarist Russia, sitting on district councils (see zemstvo) and the state council. Though he opposed the October Revolution of 1917, and was on the White side in the Russian Civil War 1918–21, he later worked under the communists. Among the many academic bodies he helped found were the Commission for the Study of Natural Productive Forces in Russia (1915), and the Institute of Radiology (1922).