Ivan Mushketov

[1] Mushketov was born 9 (21 New Style) January 1850 in the Dango Cossack area of the Don region and entered Saint Petersburg University in 1867, but soon transferred to the Mining Institute[2] where he was a student of A. P. Karpinsky, and graduated from there in 1872.

[3] Upon graduation in 1872 he began his "continuous, almost uninterrupted explorations of Russia"[2] and China which included a 6-year term (beginning 1873) as a mining attaché to the Governor General of Turkestan.

These remarkable journeys resulted in numerous scientific papers, important geological maps including the first geological map of Turkestan (with S. D. Romanovsky), and corrected much in the traveler's reports of Alexander von Humboldt and Ferdinand von Richthofen.

In 1877 Mushketov received his doctorate (thesis on the mountain area of Zlatoust) and the same year was named an adjunct professor at the Mining Institute.

He also studied the area of Astrakhan, mineral springs, salt lakes in Crimea, and organized regular observation of glaciers in the Caucasus.