In the late 1950s Tzankov organized the launch and became the first editor and one of the principal authors of the multi-volume treatise "Fossils of Bulgaria" (Bulgarian: Фосилите на България).

From 1967 to 1982 Tzankov also served as head of the Department of Paleontology with the Geological Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

After attending high school in Shumen, he enrolled in Sofia University, taking his undergraduate degree in natural history in 1929.

He took his PhD in 1929, under the supervision of Dr. Stephan Bonchev and became the first student to be awarded a doctorate in natural science in Bulgaria.

In the same year he was also appointed as head of the Department of Paleontology at the Geological Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, a position he held until 1982.

In his later years, Tzankov continued his work on "Fossils of Bulgaria" and on phylogeny of the ammonites Holcodiscidae and Asteridiscidae (together with St.