Vladimir Vernadsky

Vladimir Vernadsky

Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (Russian: Влади́мир Ива́нович Верна́дский, Ukrainian: Володимир Іванович Вернадський; 12 March 1863 – 6 January 1945) was a Russian and Soviet mineralogist and geochemist who is considered one of the founders of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and of radiogeology. His ideas of noosphere were an important contribution to Russian cosmism. He also worked in Ukraine, where he founded the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (now National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). He is most noted for his 1926 book The Biosphere in which he inadvertently worked to popularize Eduard Suess’ 1885 term biosphere, by hypothesizing that life is the geological force that shapes the earth. In 1943 he was awarded the Stalin Prize.