Helmersen was born in Duckershof, Livonia (now in Estonia) and went to boarding school in St. Petersburg.

The two travelled and listened to lectures in the universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Bonn.

[3] In 1839, along with Karl Ernst von Baer, he founded the first serial natural scientific publication in Russia known as Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Russischen Reiches.

He was an author of numerous memoirs on the geology of Russia, especially on coal and other mineral deposits of the country; and he wrote also some explanations to accompany separate sheets of the geological map of Russia.

Most of his memoirs were published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Saint Petersburg.