Research of the World Ocean Bottom by the Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences <i>to the 40th Anniversary of the R/V “Akademik Nikolaj Strakhov”</i>

Abstract

The history of the study of tectonics, lithology and stratigraphy of the World Ocean by the Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (GIN RAS) can be divided into three stages. During the first period (until 1985), without having its own vessel, the institute from time to time sent individual employees on expeditions of the Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences on research vessels. The second stage of expeditionary activity of the GIN RAS (1985–2016) was associated with the R/V “Akademik Nikolaj Strakhov”. It carried out geological and geophysical studies of transform faults, mid-ocean ridges, deep-sea basins and other objects: in the equatorial part of the Atlantic Ocean (15 cruises), in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean (2 cruises), in the Levantine, Alboran and Tyrrhenian seas (5 cruises), in the Antarctic waters (2 cruises), in the Norwegian, Greenland and Barents seas (5 cruises) and in the Indian Ocean (2 cruises). On July 1, 2016, the R/V “Akademik Nikolaj Strakhov” was transferred to the The Center for Collective Use “Scientific Fleet of IO RAS” at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. From this time on, the third stage began in the research of the GIN RAS of the geology of the World Ocean. It included work in the Atlantic Ocean (4 cruises), as well as four cruises in the Barents, Kara and Laptev shelf seas.