Yuri Aleksandrovich Meshcheryakov – founder of satellite geography

D. S. Asoyan

doi:10.31857/S0435428122010035

Yuri Aleksandrovich Meshcheryakov – founder of satellite geography

D. S. Asoyan

https://doi.org/10.31857/S0435428122010035

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Abstract

August 2021 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Yuri Alexandrovich Meshcheryakov, an outstanding scientist with an international name, inspirer and organizer of structural, geomorphological and morphostructural studies, the study of modern tectonic movements of the earth’s crust and many other scientific projects. In the last years of his short life, Yu.A. Meshcheryakov laid the foundation for another new and most daring scientific direction – satellite geography. The purpose of pioneering research was to study the possibilities of using space images in geomorphology and geography. The results obtained for the first time showed the high informativeness of space photographs in the study of morphostructures and morphosculpture of different genesis, the detection of a lineament in length 2500 km in the Sahara; for the first time, real transitional boundaries of landscape latitudinal zones of Africa were established. Yu.A. Meshcheryakov, assessing the significant prospects opening up for geographical science, proposed to create a Laboratory of Satellite Geography at the Institute of the IG as USSR Academy of Sciences, developed a program of comprehensive research on application of space images. After the death of 1970 Yu.A. Meshcheryakov, research on satellite geography using aerospace sounding and cartographic modeling methods has been successfully continued to the present day. The findings were confirmed in further domestic and foreign research in the field of aerospace sounding.

Keywords

space images, geomorphological interpretation, aerospace sounding, artificial satellites of the Earth, zones of lineaments, geographical research

About the Author

D. S. Asoyan

Institute of Geography RAS
Russian Federation

Moscow

References

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Review

For citations:

Asoyan D.S. Yuri Aleksandrovich Meshcheryakov – founder of satellite geography. Geomorfologiya. 2022;53(1):102-111. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31857/S0435428122010035