The Institution of the Russian Academy of Sciences Geophysical center of RAS (GC RAS) in its present status was set up as a research institute in 1992 by the RAS Presidium Resolution of July 23, 1992. GC RAS was formed with reorganizing the Interdepartmental Geophysical Committee (IGC) of AS USSR. The latter was established in January 1961 in compliance with a decision of the USSR Council of Ministers (Act of 11 January signed by A. N. Kosygin, the First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers). In its turn the IGC of AS USSR was the successor of the Interdepartmental Committee established at the Presidium of the Academy of Science of the USSR in August 1954 to prepare and implement the International Geophysical Year.

Academician AS USSR, Grigory Alexandrovich Gamburtsev

The major goals of IGC AS USSR was planning and coordinating complex geophysical researches conducted in international projects and programs and many-sided scientific approach to objects under studies. One more important goal was further development of the World Data Centers (WDC) that were formed during IGY and went on functioning in IGC.

The Earth is a complex space body, which has a number of spheres: the core, the mantle, the crust, biosphere, atmosphere, ionosphere, radiation belts and others. Generally the Earth is a complex dynamic system in which processes on various time and space scales go on. Joint efforts of researchers in different fields and of many countries of the world are required to study the Earth as a whole and the processes going on in it Integrating soviet geophysics and related earth sciences into these studies became the most important function of IGC.

The first steps in coordinating research in earth science were made as early as in the first half of the XIX century. However the actual start of the era of international joint work in geophysics may be called 1 August 1882 when the First International Polar Year (I IPY) began. Its program comprised research into phenomena and processes going on in high latitudes of Northern hemisphere. Particular attention was given to research in weather affecting the climate of the Earth and in drifting ice. Geomagnetic phenomena in the areas around the magnetic pole of the Earth were studied as well. It was for the first time in history that scientists of 11 countries joined their efforts to accomplish this program. Academician of Petersburg AS G. I. Vildt, the Russian representative, was elected President of International Polar Commission, which headed all the activities of the first IPG.

Fifty years later, the Second International Polar Year (II IPY) began on 1 August 1932. Its program included the studies of magnetic storms, aurora borealis, ionosphere condition, cosmic ray flow reaching the Earth, and weather phenomena and their interrelations with processes going on in the Sun. Scientists from 44 countries participated in the Second International Polar Year. Work was carried out in more than 100 stations; a half of them were set up in northern and southern high-latitude areas. Data obtained in the II IPY were not used completely because the Second World War had stopped the cooperation of researchers. Not all data collected during II IPY had been published by the beginning of the war and some data were destroyed in bombardments and lost for science. Many materials could only be used if compared with analogs. Nevertheless the II International Polar Year was a milestone in the studies of the Earth. The achievements as well as failures of the II IPY suggested the necessity of coordinated activities of geophysicists of all the countries in the world.

After the end of the Second World War the world scientific community began to make preparations for the next Polar Year. Taking into consideration more expanded tasks of research this intention was transformed into the idea of the International Geophysical Year, which would not be restricted by studies in high latitudes. The IGY was the greatest scientific international enterprise in the middle of the XX century. Scientists of 67 countries, which makes about two thirds of all the countries of the world at that time, participated in it. The IGY started on 1 July 1957 and was over on 31 December 1958.

Subsequently on the initiative of Soviet scientists the IGY was extended to 1959 and named “International geophysical cooperation” in order to continue collecting data and to use the equipment that had been delivered to difficult terrains.

In compliance with the Government decisions, 20 ministries and departments of the USSR and Union Republics participated in researches by the IGY program. The number of independent scientific institutes and higher education institutions involved in the work varied at different stages of preparing and conducting IGY but generally it was about 100. The Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the Academies of Sciences of Union Republics, the Chief Department of the Northern Sea Route of the Navy Ministry (GUSMP), Chief Department of Hydrometeorology Service at the USSR Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Secondary and Specialized Education and the Ministry of Communications of the USSR made the greatest contribution into implementing the IGY program.

Academician AS USSR, Ivan Pavlovich Bardin

As in other countries participating in IGY, in the USSR in compliance with the Government decision, a special body was formed in August 1954 to coordinate work, that is the Interdepartmental Committee at the AS USSR Presidium for preparing and conducting the International Geophysical Year (brief name was the Soviet Committee for IGY). The head of the body was Academician Grigory Aleksandrovich Gamburtsev, an outstanding Soviet geophysicist. After he died in 1955, Academician Ivan Pavlovich Bardin, Vice-President of AS USSR, became the Committee Chairman. Corresponding member AS V. V. Belousov, corresponding member AS Yu. D. Boulanger, Professor N. V. Pushkov and Academician F. F. Davitaya were appointed Deputy Chairs. Professor V. A. Troitskaya became scientific secretary of the Committee.

Sections were formed according to planetary geophysics subdivisions in the Committee: Meteorology and the Atmosphere Physics, Geomagnetism, Aurora Borealis, Solar Activity, Cosmic Rays, Ionosphere, Meteors, Longitudes and Latitudes, Oceanology, Glaciology, Seismology, Gravimetry, and Rockets and man-made Satellites of the Earth. The sections worked out detailed plans of the participation of our country in the IGY, coordinated it with the plans of other countries and tasks set up by the Special International Committee of IGY (CSAGI).

On 11 June 1956, Resolution No. 789 of the USSR Council of Ministers was adopted that had been prepared by the Committee. According to it, departments were bound to implement plans of observations and research approved by the Interdepartmental Committee for execution of the IGY. The resolution also stipulated measures to provide financial means including delivery of devices and equipment for Soviet observations of IGY, introduction and production of new devices and structures, construction of stations and other objects.

The same resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers allotted at the expense of different sources the amount of 70 million rubles to prepare for the IGY in 1956 (now it amounts to approximately 20 million dollars) and an amount of 1 million 200 thousand exchange rubles to obtain devices and materials abroad and also bounded those departments to include in their plans and budgets required labor resources, investments, and allocations for science operational expenses in 1957-1958.

Corresponding member, AS USSR, Vladimir Vladimirovich Belousov

When planning the IGY a mechanism was envisaged that ensured safety of obtained data as well as free access to data of scientists and researchers of all countries. The governments of two leading countries agreed to form and support financially World Data Centers, bodies that never had analogs before. One of them was WDC A the USA and the other was WDC B in the Soviet Union. Both World Data Centers received observation data on all branches of geophysics that were included in the IGY program. The formation of WDC system was an important result of a system approach to the IGY implementation as an international project. Later on the WDC system was considerably expanded.

In January 1961, the Interdepartmental Geophysical Committee by the Presidium of the Academy of Science of the USSR having the following responsibilities was formed on the basis of the Soviet Committee for IGY:

• coordination and planning of complex geophysical research conducted by international projects and programs;
• ensuring the USSR participation in corresponding international organizations of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) and the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) and in multilateral cooperation of the Academies of Science of socialist countries;
• international data exchange on planetary geophysics;
• approving and publishing results obtained by research under international geophysical projects.

On 16 September 1970, the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Science adopted a resolution on uniting IGC and WDC. Thus in 1971 World Data Center (WDC В) on solar-terrestrial physics became a part of the IGC. In IGC, the World Data Center on the physics of the solid earth was formed in 1971. From the moment of its formation, the corresponding member Vladimir Vladimirovich Belousov, a well-known Soviet geologist, was the head of IGC for almost 30 years (1961-1990). From 1960 to 1963, V.V. Belousov was President of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics.

In 10 years from 1975 to 1985 the staff of IGC gradually increased from 82 people in 1975 to 91 people in 1985. In this case the number of researchers in WDC and other subdivisions of IGC increased from 22 researchers in 1975 to 29 in 1985. Many young specialists worked in IGC. For example in 1980 28 people under 30 years of age worked there. Almost a half of researchers had scientific degrees. About a half of all co-workers were engaged in WDC laboratories (41 people, 30 of them worked in the Laboratory of solar-terrestrial physics data and 11 people worked in the Laboratory of solid earth physics. WDC people made a considerable contribution to the automation of geophysical data processing and storage. American scientists were involved in dealing with such problems in 1979-1980. Scientists of all over the world use results obtained at that time up till now. At that time, the laboratory “The Atomic and Sub-atomic Data Center” in which 5 researchers worked was a part of IGC. The laboratory head was I.P. Selinov, one of the creators of hydrogen bomb who worked together with Academician Andrei Sakharov.

The perestroika of the 1980s caused reorganizing of research institutes. In 1991 the Russian Academy of Sciences became the successor of the USSR Academy of Sciences. On the basis of IGC in 1992 the National Geophysical Committee of the Russian Federation was formed that united sections and committees of IGC. The Committee became national representative of Russia in the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics.

The Geophysical Center was formed as a research institute of RAS with the personnel of IGC and World Data Center B. Major tasks of GC RAS were to collect and analyze data with the use of modern Internet technologies and the creation of information resources on geo science. The Geophysical Center became the base of the National Geophysical Committee of the Russian Federation and the Russian National CODATA Committee. Internet-oriented modern system of computer telecommunication was established with research institutes of many countries of the world. The most important line of research was developing information technologies and adapting them to geophysical research. Powerful information resources were constructed in different fields of geo science. Since that time the Geophysical Center RAS has considerably enlarged the scope of scientific problems under studies. Research started to be conducted in space geodesy and altimetry, geodynamics, geoecology of nuclear fuel cycle objects, information geophysics and others. Such an expansion of GC topics was noted in 1990-2004 when the corresponding member RAS Gennady Aleksandrovich Sobolev, an outstanding seismologist, was Director of GC RAS. From 1994 to 2004 G. A. Sobolev was also President of National Geophysical Committee of RF. From 1994 to 1998 he was President of the European Seismological Commission (ESC).

Corresponding Member RAS, Gennady Alexandrovich Sobolev

In July 2005, the team of the Center of Geodetic Data Studies (CGDS) of IPE RAS with a powerful computation center joined the Geophysical Center. In GC a powerful cluster on the basis of several tens of processors was constructed. The themes of research has expanded. Important results were obtained in the elaboration of mathematic methods of artificial intelligence and their application to identification and systematization of geophysical data. Active research in GIS and their applications was started to analyze natural risk. Numerous projects were successfully carried out to study informational society technologies and to apply them to management and geophysical data studies.

Now the scientific potential of GC RAS is 67 researchers and engineers, among them 3 corresponding members of RAS, 12 doctors of science and 14 phDs. The topics of scientific research are dictated by the GC regulations that define major directions of activity. For the most part GC conducts basic researches. They are aimed at achieving a new level of understanding processes going on in the Earth with the use of creating global information resources and new methods of their combined scientific studies based on artificial intelligence development.

Information resources created in GC and methods of their processing are used in different fields of basic and applied science, such as geochemistry, geology, space physics and others. In WDC data of world observatories network are collected on many fields of planetary geophysics: geomagnetism, seismology, gravimetry, thermal flow, ionosphere phenomena, cosmic rays, data on interplanetary medium and solar activity from 1957 to the present. Data of international projects with GC participation occupy a prominent place.

On regular basis and on requests (now by e-mail and on-line), GC supplies data to organizations of different countries that are in the system of World Data Centers. A special attention in GC is given to supplying data to scientists of the institutes of the Department of the earth science and RAS as well as of a number of other Russian organizations participating in WDC system activity. In GC, much experience has been acquired of using modern computer technologies and artificial intelligence methods to collect, systematize, process, visualize and manage the storage and distribution of large arrays of geological and geophysical information. In this case construction of databases and data banks is especially important. In the Center, software is elaborated especially for the analysis of data and checking data quality, data processing, data selection from bases by various criteria and data visualization in a form convenient for users: construction of multi-dimensional charts of spatial distribution of events locations, measuring stations, tracks, deep sections, various plots and diagrams. Databases are accompanied by information and references for users. An access system to information resources and databases was created for remote users in the Internet on-line.

For further development of distributed Internet-oriented resources and efficient access of users to information resources of GC a modern communication-calculation node connected with high-speed optical fiber channel (2 Gb) and a node of base network MSU-RAS was created in the Geophysical Center. The node comprises a cluster of distributed databases of 2 processor modules, a central server of the local network and seven information servers controlling and providing network users access to databases of WDC and GC RAS and GC electronic publications: International Journal of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, the Russian Journal of Earth Sciences and other information resources.

The Center has a library, which is a branch of the Library of Natural Science (BEN), regularly enriched with Russian and foreign periodicals. The themes of books and periodicals added to the library are associated with planetary geophysical research. A large number of foreign publications are unique because they were obtained by international book exchange. The researchers of GC and other readers have an access to publications of a considerable number of foreign magazines in the Internet. Readers are provided with an access to ICSU Navigator for Primary Scientific Publications, database of this system is enriched on a regular basis; references are made to electronic versions of magazines available in Internet, we keep track on information resources coming in Internet on the themes of the library.

Academician, Alexei Dzhermenovich Gvishiani

The Geophysical Center maintains relations and collaborates with a large amount of institutes of RAS and international geophysical organizations, different analytical and specialized centers, research institutes and services in Russia and other countries. The researchers of the Center participate in international projects. According to resolutions of the Russian Academy of Science and international organizations the Geophysical Center is

• the official Russian Node of the World Data Centers international network of the International Council for Science (ICSU);
• basic organization of World Data Center on Solid Earth and Solar-Terrestrial Physics;
• one of five basic organizations of the European Mediterranean Seismological Center comprising more than 60 seismological institutes of Europe;
• the Russian Center of international organization CODATA (Committee on Data for Science and Technology ICSU) and basic organization of CODATA Russian National Committee;
• the central node of the distributed system Space Physics Interactive Data Resource (SPIDR), aimed at research in space weather.

The academician Alexei Dzhermenovich Gvishiani, a well-known scientist in the field of geoinformatics, artificial intelligence methods and information society technologies application in geophysics has been heading the Geophysical Center RAS since January 2005. A.D. Gvishiani is a foreign member of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, CODATA Vice-President, Vice-Chair of Panel on World Data Centers (ICSU), Vice-President of European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC, France).