Beloussov, V. V.

Beloussov, V. V. (1907–90) Vladimir Vladimirovich E. Beloussov was a senior Earth scientist in the Soviet Union and a protagonist of alternatives to the theory of ocean-floor spreading and continental drift/plate tectonics during the mid-twentieth century when debate was so vigorous. He was an Academician and member of the Institute of Physics of the Earth in Moscow. He was also a Foreign Member of the Geological Society of London whom he addressed in 1966 on ‘Modern concepts of the structure and development of the Earth's crust and the upper mantle of continents’ and, later, on the work of Soviet expeditions to East Africa. Beloussov remained opposed to the theory of ocean-floor spreading and offered detailed alternatives. His view of the nature and structure of the crust and mantle was complex, and he maintained that processes were widespread and active by which hot basic and ultrabasic magmas transform continental crust to oceanic crust by destroying and dissolving the former. These processes, he held, were most active at the edges of continents. As late as 1971 he was offering possible relationships between magmatisim and tectogenesis (major tectonic events) that differed very much from the views commonly held in the West.

Beloussov refused to believe in the regular magnetic striping of the ocean floor about the oceanic ridges. He thought of it as an expression of a layering of basalts and as occurring only as ‘rather irregular scattered patches’. Vertical movements he favoured; great horizontal movements of entire continents he would not accept. Beloussov nevertheless made significant contributions to Earth physics, and was highly regarded in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. He led three Soviet expeditions to the Rift Valley area of East Africa in the 1960s and concentrated on studies of deep continental structure and the mantle. He was President of the Upper Mantle Commission of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics in 1960, and at the Union's Thirteenth General Assembly in Finland he called for a new international project that could follow the then recently concluded International Geophysical Year. The title of this project was to be ‘The upper mantle and its influence on development of the Earth's crust’. It was a non-starter.

During his career Beloussov was appointed to many prestigious positions in Soviet academic circles, and was a member of several international scientific bodies. Although his views have not found subsequent favour, he possessed great intellectual powers, originality, and drive. His influence upon the development of the Earth sciences in the Soviet Union after the Second World War was very important.

D. L. Dineley