Мурманская миля. 2016, № 3.

HYSTORY N ikolay N ikolayevich TRUBYATCHINSKY (1925, Leningrad, USSR - 2001, Beersheba, Israel), a Soviet scientist, naval surveyor, m agnetometer o perator, lieutenant colonel and engineer, member o f Arctic expeditions, founder o f M arine Arctic G eological Expedition (MAGE). Николай Николаевич ТРУБЯТЧИНСКИЙ (1925, Ленинград, СССР — 2001, Беер-Шева, Израиль) — советский ученый, военный гидрограф , морской магнитометрист, инженер-подполковник, участник полярных экспедиций, основатель М орской арктической геологоразведочной экспедиции (МАГЭ). 6 conditions were fa r from being limited to hardships the new­ born team had to confront. There was a lack of specialists, offices, and equipment fo r geophysical survey to be conducted. Nikolay Nikolayevich managed, though, to arrange an expedition in a few months and conduct pioneer offshore survey with six vessels as early as 1973. According to Mark Verba, a well-known geologist, it was the first time that the Arctic offshore survey had produced real depth profiles rather than mere zero- offset time sections that do not ring a bell with modern college graduates. “Attended by enthusiastic female associates of different age and being as self-possessed as he was, Igor Frantsuzov arrived in Leningrad to present his first comprehensive report on the Spitsbergen shelf. Report of a high scientific standard. It provided an unprecedented and meticulous comparison study of four shipborne gravimeter sets. The study had been initiated by Vsevolod Fedynsky, and its findings shaped the development of marine gravity survey in this country fo r two decades to come,” Mark recalls. “ Following an overall, creative approach to interpreting cu rren t geological and geophysical data, the th ird -yea r expedition started to acquire a new perspective on the geology of the Barents and Kara Sea shelf, huge and in many respects mysterious as it was. Any fu rthe r achievements were largely determ ined by th is operating geological assumption and two fundamental organizational decisions, made from the very sta rt s tu ff to fo cus on newly qualified ta len t and avoid a narrow, one-sided specialization. Assim ilation of the integrated survey techno logy made it possible to launch expeditions to the A tlantic and Pacific Ocean and propose o ffshore geological survey as a new kind of marine e xp lo ra tion ,” Mark explains. In its early years, MAGE succeeded in expanding the boundaries of the Timan- Pechora and East Siberian oil and gas provinces, and developed a scientific framework fo r further oil and gas exploration within these areas. It will be seen later that they are the parts of the massive Ob River and Barents Sea megabasin containing hydrocarbon reserves which have yet to be estimated. “Since early 1972 and until 1980, MAGE had been making progress and operating based mainly on regional oil and gas exploration,” says Gennady Kazanin, D irector General of MAGE. “Quite a lot of structures were discovered over that time. For example, the Murmanskaya and Severo-Kildinskaya structures. Almost the entire Pechora offshore area was explored, and a few structures were found in the Kara Sea. During that period, our office building was completed, which was quite an achievement back then. Meanwhile, working space was still in short supply. Instead, we had mostly sem i­ basement rooms. For example, the geophysical workshop, or laboratory, I had worked in fo r about five years was on the ground floor on Polyarny Krug Street. One of our groups lived on Zavodskaya Street in wooden shacks heated with a furnace. Even after completion of the office in 1980, the groups stayed either in sem i-basements or ground floors fo r quite a long tim e .” “And yet, the importance of exploration carried out by MAGE at that time cannot be overestimated. Its results lay the groundwork fo r an essentially new and more extensive assessment of potential reserves on the Russian Arctic shelf.” MURMANSK MILE • 3-2016