Karol Bohdanowicz

He was the author of about 200 scientific papers, including a number of textbooks on geology of deposits and two monographs: 'Mineral raw materials of the world' and 'Iron ores'.

[1] During his studies, in 1885, he took part as a collector in a geological expedition to the Ural Mountains organised by the notable Russian geologist, T. Czernyszew.

In the spring of 1889 the expedition set out from the western corner of Lake Issyk Kul and reached south to the village of Aktala; from there it continued west.

He began compiling the samples collected during the expedition in April 1891 at the Geological Committee in St. Petersburg, and for this work he received the Great Medal of Przewalski from the Russian Geographical Society.

In 1892 he was delegated for three years to a mining expedition preparing the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway Line as the head of the research group.

The works and studies carried out by the expedition provided the basis for geological knowledge about this part of Asia that had been difficult to access.

In 1901 he conducted research in the eastern part Caucasus, and then he took geological photos of oil deposits in the Kuban region.

In 1895, on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and State Property, Bogdanovic led an expedition to study the geological structure of the Coast of Okhotsk and Kamchatka, which lasted three years.

At the end of November 1896 they set out from Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, crossed the lake Eagle and in January 1897 reached the mouth of the river Uda.

In April, the two ascended a lower left tributary of the Uda and explored the southernmost parts of the Dzhugdzhur Mountains for more than 100 km.

At the end of July, from the mouth of the Uda, the detachment set out northeast along the coast, resulting in several deposits of gold being discovered.

From there, in January 1898, Bogdanovic returned to Ayan, exploring the entire coast and southeastern slopes of Dzhugdzhur for 550 km.

He continued this research for two months in the summer 1912, in order to aid the exploration and production of crude oil around Baku and in Kazakhstan.

Due to his interests, he went on short-term trips to the island of Java and to California to learn about modern equipment and methods of oil extraction.

Later, based on his mining experience from the Caucasus, he worked as an expert in exploring oil deposits in many countries of the world.

Bohdanowicz came back to the Russian Partition of Poland for the first time in 1905 as a manager of a geological works in the Dąbrowa Basin.

His purpose was to be an expert opinion on the occurrence of hard coal and metal ores in the area dolomitic limestone units.

Photo from the celebration of 50 years of scientific activity of Prof. Bohdanovich, Academy of Mining and Metallurgy in Kraków, 1935
The grave of geologist Karol Bohdanowicz in Aleja Zasłużonych at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw
The grave of Karol Bohdanowicz at the Powązki Cemetery