Alexander Fersman's boisterous scientific activity, assertiveness and even his appearance were reflected in the nicknames he received from his colleagues. He was called "ball lightning" and "uncle elephant". Students and admirers, wishing to demonstrate their involvement in his research, called themselves no other than "Fersmanides" and "Fersmanoids".
To the geologist's credit is a long list of discoveries and successful decisions on the organization of science. During his expeditions, he discovered the Monchegorsk copper-nickel deposit, a sulfur deposit in Central Asia and, most importantly, the Khibiny apatite-nepheline deposits, unique in terms of reserves and quality, which formed the basis for the construction of the Apatit mining and chemical complex. Today, it is the world's largest enterprise producing phosphate raw materials that are in demand on the domestic market and in more than a hundred other countries around the world.
In popular science literature one can read that fate throughout his life favored Alexander Evgenyevich. But this, of course, is said with a great stretch - in 1917 Fersman was branded a "former nobleman", and in 1937 - accused of "sabotage to conceal land wealth". Only his unquestionable authority and professionalism allowed him to safely survive these persecutions and continue his work.
Alexander Fersman really came from a noble family. Both of his grandfathers were lieutenant generals, his great-uncle was the rector of the Imperial St. Petersburg University, his father was a military architect, a participant in the Turkish campaign and head of the Alexander Military School, and his uncle was a famous chemist.
The future mineralogist was born in St. Petersburg, then the family moved to Greece, and finally to Odessa. The young man received an excellent education: he knew Latin, Greek, French and German, but most of all he was fond of mineralogy. Every summer he spent in the large estate of his grandfather Eduard Kessler, near Simferopol - a two-story house that looks like a medieval German castle in neo-Gothic style. The building provided not only fireplace halls, sleeping rooms, wine cellars, but also a scientific laboratory with the first weather station in the Crimea. Every walk through the surrounding lands turned into an informative geological excursion for the guests of the estate.
In his memoirs, Alexander Evgenievich wrote how "all day long they and their brothers and sisters climbed the rocks, once discovered a vein of rock crystal - then another, third. In the attic of the house, the children found a "treasure" - an old dusty box with a large collection of rocks. And also "a strict uncle-chemist took us to his laboratory, where he showed us different salts and their crystals". By the age of ten, the young man had accumulated his own mineralogical collection, which was housed in three small cabinets.
Fersman studied for several years at the University of Novorossiysk, and after his father's transfer to Moscow, he entered the Moscow University, at the chair of mineralogy of Vladimir Vernadsky. This acquaintance had a decisive influence on the formation of the young scientist. Even then, a circle of enthusiastic students rallied around the famous naturalist, who shared his ideas on the necessity of applying to mineralogy the methods of chemistry, which allowed to determine the composition, structure and changes in minerals in different conditions. The professor devoted an endless amount of time to working with young people - he made mineralogical excursions with them "in the fields", supervised research in laboratories, organized the publication of the results of their work in leading European journals. Among all the new specialists Vernadsky singled out Fersman in a special way, recognizing in the energetic young man an outstanding potential.
On his recommendation, Alexander Evgenievich was retained at the university to prepare for a professorship. As part of his studies in 1907-1909, he underwent scientific training in Germany, France and Italy.
Fersman returned to Russia with a clear realization of the scientific field in which he wanted to develop. He was interested in the chemical composition of the Earth, the laws of distribution and movement of elements in various geological environments, the processes of rock formation. In short, geochemistry, which at that time had not yet been formalized into an independent discipline.
In 1909, Alexander Evgenievich was appointed a supernumerary assistant at the Mineralogical Cabinet of Moscow University. A year later, as a professor, he read the world's first course in geochemistry, becoming one of the founders of the new science. A year later, together with Vladimir Vernadsky, he moved to St. Petersburg, where they headed the Geological and Mineralogical Museums of the Academy of Sciences. Were serious scientists carried away by the idea of replenishing museum collections?
"Modern mineralogical collections should meet not so much the task of lifting the love for the study of nature, but correspond to the latest scientific paths and their achievements. From the museum point of view, the questions of a new geochemical survey of the Earth's crust require new, their own methods, systematic arrangement, evaluation of those objects that should be in such a museum - the museum of a chemist of the Earth, not just a lover of stone", - wrote Alexander Fersman.
Pierre and Marie Curie's discovery of radioactivity was enthusiastically received by domestic scientists. The central figure in the plan to involve the Academy of Sciences in a comprehensive study of radioactive ores in Russia was Vernadsky, who obtained state funding. The research was to take place on the basis of the Museum of the Academy of Sciences. He saw Fersman as his main assistant in this endeavor, but subsequent events put the most interesting work on hold.
The First World War brought Russia to the brink of a raw materials catastrophe. For many years the country relied on foreign raw materials and equipment. Fersman emphasized the anecdotal nature of the situation: "The sidewalk in front of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow was paved with granite from Sweden, clay for the glass industry was imported from Germany, and even flint for ball mills was imported from Denmark".
In 1915, a permanent Commission for the Study of Natural Productive Forces of Russia (CEPS) was established, and Alexander Evgenievich was elected secretary of the Commission. The structure was given a strategic task to search for scarce raw materials: search for aluminum ores, molybdenum, nickel, cobalt, tungsten, use of refractory clays of the North, salts of Kara-Bogaz-Gol, bituminous shales in the vicinity of Petrograd. On assignment of the Military and Naval Departments, Fersman traveled all over the country, exploring manifestations of iron, lead-zinc ores, bauxite, deposits of natural camouflage green and blue paints, building materials.
In particular, Alexander Evgenievich repeatedly traveled to Transbaikalia, to the "self-colored" Ural and to the Crimea, where he studied pegmatites, deposits of molybdenum, tin, tungsten, gold, zeolites, fluorite, radioactive raw materials. He singled out the Mongolian-Okhotsk metallogenic belt, substantiated the belt distribution of minerals, and gave general schemes of mineral and ore formation. When work on radioactivity was restored in 1918, Fersman also took an active part in the work of the Radium Commission.
However, the real professional triumph was ahead of him. There is a legend that Fersman's "Khibiny epic", thanks to which the richest deposits of rare minerals were discovered, began by chance. In May 1920, Alexander Evgenyevich together with Alexander Karpinsky, President of the Academy of Sciences and professor emeritus of the Mining Institute, went to the Russian Lapland to determine the status and prospects of the Murmansk railroad. Not long ago Soviet power had been restored there after the expulsion of the interventionists, and the government was interested in the development of the northern lands. On the way to Murman the steam engine had enough firewood only to reach the Imandra station, and while fuel was being procured the academicians climbed the nearest peak Mannepakhka. It became clear to them at once that Khibiny is a unique treasure trove of unseen minerals. During the first expedition Fersman found the first blocks of striped apatite-nepheline rock ("weighing up to a pood") in a stream flowing from one of the southern spurs of Kukisvumchorr. This type was not yet known in the world, and the conclusion about the deposit did not seem serious. In the polar Khibinskaya and Lovozero tundra scientist spent many months, trying to prove that the discovered deposits of apatite, nepheline, loparite, eudialyte, pentlandite are of great national and economic importance and deserve the earliest industrial development, so necessary for the country.
"Alexander Evgenyevich's appearance on these expeditions was very colorful: an old, seen-it-all, former general's paternal leather jacket with a red lining, usually open, a camera, a barometer-aneroid, a tin kettle hanging from his belt, a geological hammer in one hand, a homemade large stick in the other, and binoculars around his neck and a whistle and magnifying glass on laces, with which he was not separated even in the city," recalled Elsa Bonstedt-Kupletskaya, a participant of the expedition.
Over the next 6 years, two of the world's largest deep alkaline massifs were discovered under the scientist's leadership and direct participation, and the scale of the discoveries was proven. Beneath the placers were bedrock outcrops of apatite-nepheline rocks with an area of several tens of thousands of square meters, and proven reserves of high-grade phosphate ores amounted to hundreds of millions of tons. Officials' mistrust and caution due to the fact that mining was to take place in the Far North seriously hampered the process. But after a meeting with Sergey Kirov in 1929, who warmly supported Fersman, the construction of roads, workers' camps, mines, and the processing plant began apace. Commercial exploitation of Khibiny apatite deposits began.
In 1930, on the shore of Lake Maly Vudyavr, the mineralogist founded the Khibiny Research Mining Station of the USSR Academy of Sciences "Tietta", remaining its chairman for 8 years. Later it was transformed into the Kola branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences).
"...The most vivid in my life were impressions of the Khibiny - the whole scientific epic, which for almost 20 years filled all my thoughts, forces, possessed my whole being, hardened my will, awakened new scientific thought, desires, hopes...", - Alexander Fersman wrote in his memoirs.
Alexander Evgenyevich became widely known in Russia as a man who had simply colossal practical and theoretical experience in geology, so necessary for the country in the development and extraction of minerals.
The Soviet government saw in him not only a scientist in the field of mineralogy and geochemistry, but also a talented organizer. In different years he was vice-president of the Academy of Sciences, headed the Radium Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the publishing house of the Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Aerial Survey, and the Department of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was elected an honorary member of various foreign mineralogical societies, was awarded medals, and was awarded the Lenin and Stalin prizes.
He developed his ideas in the field of geochemistry and productively applied them in practice. Several of his fundamental monographs were published, about 1500 articles were published. Some of them were aimed at the widest readership. One can only guess how many schoolchildren after reading the fascinating popular science books "Entertaining Mineralogy", "Entertaining Geochemistry", "Travels for Stone" wanted to connect their lives with geology.
While on vacation at the Sochi sanatorium, on May 20, 1945, Alexander Fersman passed away. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery, next to his teacher and like-minded friend Vladimir Vernadsky.
Minerals, streets in cities, mountains, a crater on the Moon, a glacier, a pass, a gorge and many other geographical objects are named in memory of the academician's merits.
