Yevgeniy (Eugene) Petrovich Gurov, March 24, 1934–July 19, 2022

Eugene (also spelled Yevgeniy or Evgeny) Gurov (Figure 1) was born in Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR, on March 24, 1934. He passed away on July 19, 2022, of heart attack in his sleep. Gurov studied geology (1951–1956) at Kharkov State University. From 1956 to 1961, he served as Engineer-Geologist at Primorian Geological Office (Far East) to conduct geological mapping. In 1961, he joined the Far-Eastern Geological Institute, Academy of Sciences of USSR, as a junior scientist to perform regional geological research and, in particular, to study the intrusions of the Stanovoy Mountain Ridge (Yakutiya), and participate in the Amur geological expedition. From 1964 until 1975, he worked at the Institute of Mineral Resources, Ministry of Geology of the Ukrainian SSR (from 1971, this was called the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences), where he studied the mineral formations of the Ukrainian Shield. In 1967, he received the Candidate's Degree in Geology/Mineralogy (equivalent to a western PhD), and in 1968 he was promoted to senior scientist. From 1975 until recently, he was a senior scientist (Figure 2) at the Institute of Geological Sciences, National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the Ukraine; for part of this tenure, he worked as a “leading researcher” and from 1990 to 1993 as the head of the relevant department. In 1989, he received the Doctor's Degree in Geology/Mineralogy (equivalent to a professorial degree). He was a member of the Scientific Council and the Specialized Council of the Institute of Geological Sciences, National Academy of Science of the Ukraine. Eugene Gurov authored and coauthored over 250 scientific publications (peer-reviewed as well as conference contributions, many of them in Russian), as well as two books. His main research interests included a variety of aspects of impact craters studies, such as structure, morphology, shock metamorphism of minerals and rocks, impact melts. He has made major contributions to the investigation of impact structures of the Ukrainian Shield, the Chukotka region, and the Aldan Shield. He spent many seasons in the field under difficult conditions (Figure 3), almost always together with his trusted companion, co-worker, and wife of many decades, Helena (Elena) Gurova (1935–2014; Figure 4). Together, they spent many field seasons at the El'gygytgyn crater and, in 1978, were able to confirm that this structure had formed by impact (see below). Eugene published many important papers on the geology and mineralogy of El'gygytgyn, Boltysh, Ilyinets, Obolon, Karakul, Zapadnaya, Logoisk, Kamensk, Rotmistrovka, Macha, and many other craters. His research since the 1970s, often together with his wife and staff at the Institute of Geological Sciences of NAS of Ukraine, but also with other national and international collaborators, led to the identification of eight impact structures on the Ukrainian crystalline shield, which indicates that this area, similar to the Baltic and Canadian shields, is one of the regions where impact craters were well preserved. The age interval of crater formation on the Ukrainian Shield ranges from 445 Ma (the age of the Ilyinets structure) to about 65 Ma (the age of the Boltysh structure). Boltysh was of particular interest because for a long time its age was thought to be identical to that of the K-Pg boundary, and only recently a minor age difference was identified. Other important impact structures on the Ukrainian Shield that Eugene worked on include the Zapadnaya impact structure, with abundant impact diamonds, the Obolon structure in a shallow marine basin on the northeastern slope of the shield and, more recently, the confirmation of the impact origin of the Kamenetsk structure, also on the Ukrainian Shield, in 2017. One of Eugene's major accomplishments had to do with the El'gygytgyn impact structure, which is located at a rather difficult to reach place in the far northeastern part of Russia (centered at 67°30′ N and 172°05′ E), on the Chukotka peninsula (Figure 1). El'gygytgyn consists of a circular depression with a rim diameter of about 18 km that is filled by a lake with a diameter of 12 km that is off-center with regard to the crater. The structure was discovered and described as a gigantic volcanic crater in 1933, and in the 1960s some suggestions about an impact origin were made, but without any (published) evidence. Later, it was even suggested to be the Australasian tektite source crater; but for the time being it was concluded that the “El'gygytgyn basin” had a tectonic and volcanic origin. Gurov and coauthors visited the El'gygytgyn structure in 1977 and confirmed its impact origin after finding shock metamorphosed rocks and impact melt rock (Gurov et al., 1978; Gurov, Gurova, et al., 1979; Gurov, Valter, et al., 1979). Investigations of the El'gygytgyn crater by these researchers continued into the 1980s and 1990s (Gurov & Gurova, 1991). Gurov and colleagues studied the main types of impact melt rocks and highly shocked volcanic rocks. The geological structure of the crater rim was described by Gurov and Gurova (1983) and Gurov and Yamnichenko (1995); see also Gurov et al. (2007). Later, an endogenic origin for this structure was once again proposed, but the matter is firmly settled due to the unambiguous evidence for an impact origin in the form of shock metamorphic effects in the crater rocks. What makes this crater so interesting is that it is the only impact crater currently known on Earth that has formed in mostly acid volcanic rocks (mainly of rhyolitic, with some andesitic and dacitic, compositions). In addition, because of its depth, the lake, that fills part of the crater, has provided an excellent sediment trap that records paleoclimatic information for the 3.6 million years since its formation. For these two main reasons, because of the importance for impact and paleoclimate research, El'gygytgyn was the subject of an International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) drilling project in 2009, which was co-led by the author of this memorial, who had worked on impactites from El'gygytgyn with Eugene for some time (e.g., Gurov & Koeberl, 2004; Gurov et al., 2005, 2007). I had the pleasure to have known Eugene for about 30 years, and he introduced me to El'gytgygyn and many other interesting craters, and freely shared his knowledge and samples. Eugene Gurov was a modest and quiet person, who nevertheless was an extremely motivated and knowledgeable scientist; despite limited resources available at his institute, he managed to make major contributions to our understanding of impact craters. During my visits to Kiev (with side-trips to several Ukrainian craters) and his visits to Vienna (the last one in 2013), we became good friends. He continued to do research and had many more ideas about what could be done in impact research long after what most people would have called a retirement age. After his wife (and long-time research partner), Helena developed health problems, he was a devoted caregiver until she passed away on July 24, 2014. On that occasion, he noted that “now I remain quite alone”. Nevertheless, in the following years, he helped confirm the Kamenetsk structure, and he worked on Sudbury samples, finding intriguing evidence for paleoflora preserved in impactites (Gurov et al., 2020) and unusual spherules (Gurov & Permiakov, 2023). He managed to get through the COVID times reasonably well but his health was, in general, declining. On top of this, on February 24, 2022, the Russian invasion of the Ukraine had begun. In an e-mail to me on February 25, he noted, “I have to remember 1941, when the Germans occupied Kharkov, and I (at the age of 7) stayed with my mother in the city. Cold and hungry winter 41/42. No electricity, no water, no fuel, nothing to eat. … the city remained under occupation for a total of 20 months … Now I have to remember all this. Today, again, fighting is going on near Kharkov. My mood is heavy, I have no strength to continue working.” A week later, his daughter Nataliia (a physicist) managed to escape (with grand-children) to Austria. Despite all this, Eugene still found some time and inspiration to continue research and working on manuscripts, and sent me various image files and others in May 2022. It is a very strange coincidence that the last e-mail (with a file attached) I received from him had the subject line “the last one”—and it was the very last e-mail I received from him before he passed away in July 2022. It is with a heavy heart that I remember my good friend and respected colleague Eugene Gurov, who has contributed so much to impact crater studies, despite all the difficulties he encountered and overcame, in memory of his career and achievements. I am grateful to Kateryna Tkachenko, a colleague from Eugene's institute, for information and a scan of the “fish” photo, and to Nataliia Zarubina for additional information.

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