Oceanography, Institute of

Oceanography, Institute of 

(full name, P. P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR), a research institution whose tasks include comprehensive study of the world ocean. The institute was founded in Moscow in 1946 by P. P. Shirshov from the Laboratory of Oceanography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (established in January 1941). It was named in honor of Shirshov in 1967.

The main task of the Institute of Oceanography is to study the principles of the physical, chemical, geological, and biological phenomena and processes taking place in the world ocean. The institute conducts work on the development of equipment and methods of oceanographic research. The institute has sectors of the physics of the ocean; the geochemistry, geophysics, and tecr tonics of the ocean bottom; and the biology of the ocean. There is also an engineering sector. It has a design bureau for oceanographic equipment. The institute has a division for mathematical simulation of ocean and atmospheric circulation in Leningrad, a southern division near Gelendzhik, and an Atlantic division in Kaliningrad, as well as research vessels (among them the Vitiaz’, the Akademik Kurchatov, and the Dmitrii Mendeleev). The institute has published Trudy (Transactions) since 1946 (as of the end of 1973, 95 volumes had been published). The institute has a graduate school and confers doctoral and candidate’s degrees.

A. S. MONIN