Geology (геологія; heolohiia). A science dealing with the structure, composition, and history of the earth’s crust. Its major divisions are structural geology (the study of rock geometry and deformation); petrology, mineralogy, crystallography, and geochemistry (dealing with the physical and chemical properties of rock); geotectonics (the study of the structure and movement of the earth’s crust); historical geology (the study of the historical origins of the earth’s crust and its surface); stratigraphy (the study of rock layers and their formation); paleontology (the study of fossils); economic geology (the study of deposits of useful minerals); hydrogeology (the study of groundwater); engineering geology (the study of geological factors affecting man-made structures); and geophysics (the study of the physical parameters of earth). Because its results are of great economic importance, geological research and the preparation of geological maps often are undertaken by special state institutes. The emergence of geology as a science dates back to the second half of the 18th century.

The first geological explorations in Ukraine were conducted after the 1750s by the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences. The researchers (Peter Pallas, S. Gmelin, Johann Anton Güldenstädt, and J. Georgi), who were of German origin, studied various aspects of Southern Ukraine, the Crimea, and Caucasia. Beginning in the 1820s, the development of geology and a realization of its practical importance led to the undertaking of more precise surveys. In the 1830s the first detailed descriptions and geological maps of the Donets Basin were made by Yevhraf Kovalevsky, O. Ivanytsky, A. Oliveri, and by the expedition organized by A. Demidov. The first geological maps of Ukrainian territories included those of G. Gelmersen (1841), R. Murchison (1845), and A. Meiendorf (1849).

Until 1834 geological research in the Russian Empire was overseen by the Department of Mining and Salt Affairs, then by the General Staff of the Corps of Mining Engineers, and from 1882 by the Geological Committee in Saint Petersburg, which stressed particularly the development of geological cartography. Departments of geology, including mineralogy and petrology, were established at Kharkiv University (under Ivan Levakovsky), Kyiv University (under Konstantin Feofilaktov), and Odesa University, and then at the Mining Institute in Katerynoslav (see Dnipro University of Technology). In the second half of the 19th century, also engaged in geological research were Nykyfor Borysiak, O. Hurov, I. Levakovsky, N. Krishtafovich, M. Klemm, and Porfyrii Piatnytsky in Kharkiv; Mykola Andrusiv, Petro Armashevsky, Volodymyr Luchytsky, and N. Shmalhauzen in Kyiv; I. Syntsov and Vladimir Laskarev in Odesa; and N. Lebedev in Katerynoslav. In addition members of the Saint Petersburg Geological Committee, such as N. Barbot de Marni, conducted geological research in Ukraine in the 1860s, as did N. Sokolov and Leonid Lutugin in the 1880s. In the 1880s geological surveys and in the 1890s the preparation of the 10-verst geological map of European Russia stimulated research. Studies on the geology of Ukraine were published by the universities and the Geological Committee (in its Trudy, Izvestiia, and Materialy). In the 1860s the serial Sbornik materialov, otnosiashchikhsia k geologii Iuzhnoi Rossii began to appear in Kharkiv.

Before 1917 the geology of central and eastern Ukraine was studied more than that of any other part of the Russian Empire. This was mostly a result of the need to assess the mineral resources of the Donets Basin, the Kryvyi Rih Iron-ore Basin, and the Nikopol Manganese Basin. Some prominent geologists who worked in Ukraine, and their areas of specialization, were F. Chernyshev, Nykyfor Borysiak, N. Yakovlev, and Leonid Lutugin (Donets Basin), Konstantin Feofilaktov (Poltava region and Kyiv region), Porfyrii Piatnytsky (Kryvyi Rih Iron-ore Basin), Vladimir Laskarev (Southern Ukraine, Ukrainian Crystalline Shield, Volhynia), N. Sokolov (Lower Triassic deposits in Southern Ukraine), Ivan Levakovsky, O. Hurov (Left-Bank Ukraine, Donets Basin), Mykola Andrusiv (Neogene deposits), Petro Armashevsky (Left-Bank Ukraine), A. Mikhalsky (Podilia), Pavlo Tutkovsky (Volhynia and Polisia), and Yevhen Oppokiv (Polisia). Vasilii Dokuchaev studied the Quaternary deposits of Southern Ukraine and A. Karpinsky worked on the tectonics of Ukraine in the context of Eastern Europe.

In Western Ukraine geological research was conducted first by official institutions: the Geological Institute in Vienna, and later the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow (est 1873). From 1887 to 1911 the academy’s Physiographic Commission published a major geological atlas of Galicia (1:75,000) with an explanatory text. In Lviv the Polish Copernicus Society of Naturalists published geological research in its periodical Kosmos. Geology was taught at Lviv University and then at the Lviv Polytechnical Institute. Some research was begun at the Mathematical-Scientific-Medical Section of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. Noted specialists in the geology of Western Ukraine included V. Uhlig and R. Tietze (Carpathian Mountains), J. Siemiradzki and Wawrzyniec Teisseyre of Lviv University, Yuliian Medvedsky (J. Niedźwiedzki) of the Lviv Polytechnical Institute, Rudolf Zuber, A. Alth, F. Bieniasz, W. Łoziński, and Marian Łomnicki.

After the First World War geological research in Ukrainian territory under Polish rule was directed by the State Geological Institute, which had a branch in Galicia—the Boryslav Station for Petroleum Prospecting. Among Polish geologists who studied Ukrainian lands were Konstanty Tołwiński (map of the eastern Carpathian Mountains, 1:200,000), B. Świderski, H. Teisseyre, and W. Rogala (mostly the eastern Carpathian Mountains). Ukrainian geologists such as Yurii Poliansky (loess in Podilia, diluvium in Polisia), Severyn Pasternak (mineralogy), and Ivan Oleksyshyn (Miocene in Podilia) were associates of the Shevchenko Scientific Society.

In Transcarpathia geological research was overseen by the Czechoslovak Geological Institute. Stepan Rudnytsky, a Ukrainian geographer, made some contributions to geology.

In Soviet Ukraine geology developed rapidly in the 1920s. Most of the research was concentrated in the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN), whose first president was the renowned mineralogist Volodymyr Vernadsky. Within the academy’s physical-mathematical division a chair of geology, a geology cabinet, a geology section, and the Commission for the Study of the Natural Resources of Ukraine were established. All of these bodies were directed by Pavlo Tutkovsky. The geology section published its own periodical, Ukraïns'ki heolohichni visti. In 1917 a group of scholars led by Volodymyr Luchytsky and Boris Lichkov organized in Kyiv the Ukrainian Geological Committee, on the model of the Saint Petersburg Geological Committee. In 1922 the committee was reconstituted as an autonomous branch of the latter committee. It published the journal Visnyk. The main task of the committee was to carry out geological surveys and to assess the mineral resources of Ukraine.

In 1926 the Geological Institute was established to co-ordinate the work of the various VUAN bodies, as well as several government-sponsored research centers. Directed by Pavlo Tutkovsky, and then by Volodymyr Riznychenko, the institute published the journal Trudy (5 vols, 1928–34). Geologists who worked in the above-mentioned institutions included Volodymyr Krokos, Yevhen Oppokiv, Mykola Bezborodko (Ukrainian Crystalline Shield), Volodymyr Chyrvynsky, H. Zakrevska, Roman Virzhykovsky (Podilia), Olha Kaptarenko-Chornousova, and M. Melnyk. Geological work was conducted also in postsecondary schools and scientific research institutes in Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, and Kamianets-Podilskyi. Geologists working in Ukraine published their studies, mostly regional geologies, in Ukrainian, usually in the publications of the VUAN. Tutkovsky and Fedir Polonsky compiled the first Ukrainian geological dictionary.

During the 1930s, as the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences was reorganized, geology in Ukraine regressed. The geological institutions in Kyiv were reorganized into the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and geological research was restricted to areas of immediate use—mineral prospecting, hydrogeology, and engineering geology. At the same time, Russian replaced Ukrainian as the primary language of the discipline in Ukraine. In 1929 the Ukrainian Geological Committee was transformed into a branch of the Chief Geological Surveys Administration, which was responsible to the USSR Supreme Council of the National Economy. This body assumed responsibility for most geological exploration in Ukraine. Later this role was assumed by the Committee for Geological Affairs at the USSR Council of People's Commissars, and since 1946 by the USSR Ministry of Geology, which was renamed in 1953 the Ministry of Geology and the Conservation of Mineral Resources. Some research was carried out by the Ukrainian branches of all-Union research institutions under the ministries of the petroleum industry, coal industry, and heavy industry.

Geological surveying, particularly of mining regions, developed rapidly. The entire Ukrainian SSR was mapped on the scale of 1:420,000 and then 1:200,000. Maps of the Donets Basin, Kryvyi Rih Iron-ore Basin, and Nikopol Manganese Basin, and the Carpathian Mountains were prepared on the scales of 1:42,000, 1:50,000, 1:25,000, and even larger.

Geology chairs and departments were established at universities, polytechnical institutes, and mining and agricultural institutes to train professional geologists. In the 1930s the largest geological institute was the Institute of Geological Prospecting in Kyiv, which in 1935 had an enrollment of 1,159 and a faculty of 62. The universities published many geological collections, mostly in Russian.

In the interwar period chairs of geology and mineralogy were established at the Ukrainian Free University in Prague and at the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy in Poděbrady. The faculty included such émigré Ukrainian geologists as Fedir Shvets, Oleksander Orlov, and A. Cherniavsky.

After the Second World War Kyiv, Lviv, and Kharkiv became the main centers for geological research. Geological exploration was placed under one state organization, which in 1965 became the Ministry of Geology of the Ukrainian SSR. Continuous prospecting by its 12 geological and geophysical trusts has led to higher estimates of coal reserves in the Donets Basin and iron-ore reserves in the Kryvyi Rih Iron-ore Basin, and to the discovery of coal deposits, natural gas deposits, petroleum deposits, and the deposits of iron ores, magnesium ores, titanium ores, and other useful minerals. Seven specialized geological scientific research institutes and the geological faculties at institutions of higher learning have also increased knowledge of the geology of Ukraine. But most research is conducted at such institutes as the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, the Institute of the Geochemistry and Physics of Minerals of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, the Institute of Geophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, the Institute of the Geology and Geochemistry of Fossil Fuels of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, and the Marine Hydrophysical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Except for such work as that of I. Chebanenko, who proposed a theory of the earth’s geological development, most research was oriented to the practical goals of the five-year plans. The need to expand petroleum and natural-gas reserves prompted research on new types of structures containing hydrocarbons, on methods of prognosis (V. Havrysh), on the distribution of these structures in the Dnipro-Donets Trough and the Black Sea Shelf (Hryhorii Dolenko), on seismic detection techniques, and on methods of extraction. Similarly, the need for rare ferrous and non-ferrous metals sparked considerable research on the structure of the Ukrainian Crystalline Shield (Volodymyr Bondarchuk, Yu. Dovhal, G. Kaliaev, and O. Slenzak) and on ore-forming processes. Some research on earthquake prediction, explosion prevention in mines, and groundwater utilization was also done. Complex geological studies of regions were very common. Geologists who began making scholarly contributions to the geology of Ukraine in the 1930s and after the Second World War included Bondarchuk (Polisia, Dnipro-Donets Trough, Carpathian Mountains); Mykola Bezborodko, L. Lunhershauzen, Konstantin Makov, H. Mirchynk, Kateryna Novyk, Nina Pymenova, Volodymyr Selsky, and Mykola Svitalsky; Mykola Semenenko, and Dmytro Soboliev (Ukrainian Crystalline Shield); P. Stepanov (Donets Basin); Lukian Tkachuk (Carpathian Mountains); Olha Kaptarenko-Chornousova; and N. Shatsky. Almost all of them contributed to regional geology of Ukraine. Later researchers of the geology of Ukraine are M. Balukhovsky (Dnipro-Donets Trough); A. Drannik (Ovruch Ridge); B. Hurevych (Moldavian Platform); V. Kaliuzhny (deep rock mineral-bearing fluids); V. Khomenko (Transcarpathian Trough); D. Khrushchov (salt deposits in the Carpathian Foredeep); V. Kityk (salt tectonics of the Dnipro-Donets Trough); I. Maidanovych (Donbas); B. Merlych (hydrology of Transcarpathia); M. Muratov and V. Pchelintsev (the Crimea); O. Petrichenko (salt deposits of the Carpathian Foredeep); Oleh Vialov (tectonics of the Carpathian Mountains and stratigraphy of the Volhynia-Podilia Plate); and A. Radzivill, P. Bukatchuk, Yevhen Lazarenko, and B. Volovnyk (Volhynia-Podilia Plate).

Until the mid-1960s many geological publications appeared in Ukrainian. Two landmark reference works were published—Volodymyr Bondarchuk’s Heolohiia Ukraïny (Geology of Ukraine, 1959) and Atlas paleoheohrafichnykh kart Ukraïns'koï i Moldavs'koï RSR (Atlas of Paleographic Maps of the Ukrainian SSR and Moldavian SSR, 1960). A major series, Stratyhrafiia URSR, was started in 1963, but the 11 planned volumes were never completed. After 1963 no comparable major work the geology of Ukraine was undertaken in Soviet Ukraine, and technical literature was published almost exclusively in Russian. Even Heolohichnyi zhurnal, the geological periodical of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR published from 1934, changed from Ukrainian to Russian in 1978.

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Volodymyr Kubijovyč, Ihor Stebelsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]