Dear colleagues!
The Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Joint Scientific Council on Earth Sciences of the Siberian Branch of RAS, V.S. Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy of the Siberian Branch of RAS informs with the deepest sorrow that on March 25, 2022, Nikolay Vladimirovich Sobolev, the outstanding scientist, the expert in the field of mineralogy, petrology and geochemistry passed away.
Nikolai Vladimirovich Sobolev was born on May 28, 1935 in Leningrad. In 1958 he graduated with honors from the geological faculty of the Lviv State University named after I. Franko and worked as a head of the mineralogical museum for a year and a half. On May 25, 1960, he started working in the Institute of Geology and Geophysics Siberian Branch of USSR Academy of Sciences (SB RAS), where he rose from the Junior Researcher to the Director of the Associate Institute of Mineralogy and Petrography SB RAS (1990-2006), and Adviser of RAS. In 1963 he defended his PhD and, in 1971, his Doctor of Science thesis. In 1976 at the age of forty, together with future Academicians N.L. Dobretsov and V.V. Reverdatto, he was awarded the Lenin Prize for the series of monographs "Facies of Metamorphism" under the guidance of Academician V.S. Sobolev. In 1981, Nikolai Vladimirovich Sobolev was elected a Corresponding Member and, in 1990 – a Full Member (Academician) of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Nikolay Vladimirovich was an outstanding scientist, author and co-author of more than 350 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and of ten monographs. He was at the top of the list of the most cited Russian researchers in Earth sciences. According to the Web of Science, the works with his participation were cited more than twelve thousand times. For 24 years, N.V.Sobolev was the editor-in-chief of the journal "Geology and Geophysics", and, during this period, the journal had the highest impact factor among geological journals in Russia.
Nikolay Vladimirovich Sobolev was one of the world's leading experts in petrology and mineralogy of deep zones of the lithosphere, ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism, and geology of diamond deposits; as well as the recognized leader in these research fields in Russia. A unique role in his research was the study of natural diamonds and coexisting minerals.
The pioneering research of N.V. Sobolev's in the years of 1969-1971, anticipated the similar research of others by many years and greatly impacted the development of several fields of Earth sciences, including experimental research in the field of high pressures and diamond synthesis. They became the basis for creating a set of principally new mineralogical and geochemical methods of forecasting and prospecting diamond deposits, the high efficiency of which was proved by discovering the Yubileinaya pipe and forecasting of the Arkhangelsk diamondiferous province. These prognoses were highly awarded by the government. The methods developed by N.V. Sobolev have been used worldwide for many decades.
In the 1980s, under the leadership of N.V. Sobolev, the metamorphic rocks of the Kokchetav massif (Kazakhstan) revealing inclusions of micro diamonds and coesite in zircons, garnets and pyroxenes were studied in detail. Thus, it was proved for the first time that these rocks were subjected to ultrahigh pressures due to their immersion into the mantle, which led to the formation of not only coesite but also diamond.
N.V. Sobolev's works have received broad international recognition. He was elected a member of the European Academy, a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA and the National Italian Academy of Sciences, an honorary member of the Russian Mineralogical Society and Fellow of several foreign scientific societies, the vice-president of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) from 1990 to 1994, and the vice-president of the Russian Mineralogical Society. He was awarded the A.E. Fersman Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the A. von Humboldt International Award.
N.V. Sobolev was the first Russian scientist to whom the IMA Council uniting mineralogical societies of about 40 countries, granted the highest award of the IMA - the "Medal of Excellence in Mineralogical Sciences".
N.V. Sobolev was a laureate of the Lenin and State Prizes of the USSR, an honored scientist of the Yakut ASSR, awarded with many orders and medals. Among the pupils of N.V. Sobolev, there are two academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences and about 30 doctors and candidates of sciences.