Speakers

Biography

Korzh V.D was Born in Moscow in 1941. Graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry of Moscow State University. He studied in a group of theorists with advanced knowledge of mathematics. Joined the Institute of Oceanology in 1967. He defended his candidate's dissertation in 1972 and his doctorate in 1997. The main scientific activity is related to the problem of studying the processes of exchange of chemical elements in the ocean-atmosphere-continent-ocean system. I have about 200 publications in scientific journals and collections and three monographs. Participant of 7 scientific expeditions in the oceans and seas. Member of the International Working Group SCOR (No. 44) “OAMEX” Ocean-Atmosphere Material Exchange.

Abstract

Currently, the most pressing problem is the growing environmental crisis on a global scale. The previously established attitude towards nature, towards the biosphere as an endless reservoir of resources for human activity, turned out to be a dangerous delusion. The biosphere is a complex, integral, self-developing organism. The scale of modern human influence on nature is such that it is beginning to destroy the biosphere as an integral biogeochemical system. The impending environmental catastrophe requires developing new scientific principles and strategies for the relationship between man and nature.

Living organisms, absorbing chemical elements, convert them into new chemical compounds by their physiological needs. Thus, tremendous work is continuously being carried out on the biogenic differentiation of environmental elements. This work is devoted to identifying the patterns of these processes on a global scale.

Suppose an individual living organism is forced to adapt to its environment. According to our research, the totality of all living organisms (living matter) can create and maintain its environment (elemental composition) unchanged in accordance with its needs.

The objective of this work is to identify the basic laws for the creation by living matter of the elemental composition of their habitat and its maintenance in an unchanged form under conditions of intensive exchange of chemical elements of the hydrosphere with the lithosphere and to determine the constants of these processes. Global pollution leads to the destruction of the harmonious nature of the relationships between all living organisms that has developed over many years of evolution and to the loss of stability of dynamic biogeochemical processes in the biosphere.

The founder of biogeochemistry (a new direction in geological sciences) V.I. Vernadsky noted: “...Living matter embraces and regulates all or almost all chemical elements in the biosphere. They are all needed for life and enter the body for a reason. There are no special elements inherent to life. There are dominant ones. ... Life is a planetary phenomenon and mainly determines chemistry, the migration of chemical elements of the upper earth’s shell - the biosphere, the migration of all chemical elements" [1].

We have studied the migration of all quantifiable chemical elements in the ocean-atmosphere-continent system. We considered the elemental compositions of the hydrosphere, atmosphere, and soil cover as separate parts of the biosphere, which continuously transform and exchange matter.

The dynamics of the global process of transfer of chemical elements in the ocean-atmosphere-continent-ocean system have been studied. An active participant in these processes is living matter. The general patterns of redistribution of average elemental compositions in the biosphere between the solid and liquid phases (lithosphere - hydrosphere) have been determined.

We have determined for the first time that, due to metabolic processes, living matter constantly creates and invariably maintains an increased concentration of microelements in its habitat. The biocenosis of the hydrosphere transforms the flow of substances in the direction of increasing the soluble forms of trace element compounds in its habitat. The biocenosis of the lithosphere acts in the opposite direction, increasing the concentration of insoluble forms of microelements in the soil cover.

Nonlinear laws of the redistribution of average elemental compositions in the biosphere between the liquid and solid phases (hydrosphere - lithosphere) have been established. For the first time, the universal nonlinearity constant of these processes in the biosphere has been determined to be approximately equal to 0.7 [2-4]. This constant, indicating the normal functioning of the biosphere as an integral system, should be used as an environmental standard. Violation of this constant (as a result of anthropogenic impact on natural biogeochemical processes) will inevitably lead to irreversible, practically insoluble ecological problems on a global scale.