Mineralogy and petrology of alkaline rocks and carbonatites: Celebrating the life and work of Gregory Yu. Ivanyuk (1966–2019)

Abstract

This issue of Mineralogical Magazine is dedicated to the memory of Gregory (Grisha) Yu. Ivanyuk (1966-2019, an internationally acclaimed mineralogist, an accomplished artist and photographer, and a tireless explorer of the Kola wilderness (Fig. 1). Grisha passed away suddenly on July 7, 2019, during a field excursion to Mt. Eveslogchorr in the Khibiny (also known as Khibina) alkaline complex, Kola Peninsula, Russia. This was the very place where he started his mineralogical studies of the region back in 1988. At the time of his untimely death, he was bursting with energy, plans and ideas. None of us who knew him could expect such a sudden and unjust disruption of this singularly dynamic life and research career.Gregory was born on February 23, 1966, in Perm, a city with a 300-year history of mineral exploration which is also the namesake of the Permian Period and stratigraphic system. In 1983, he enrolled at the Faculty of Geology in Leningrad State University (LGU, now St. Petersburg State University), where he majored in Mineralogy. During these formative years, Gregory became first exposed to, and fell in love with, alkaline rocks and carbonatites, particularly after his trip to the Murun charoite deposit in Siberia. This interest was fermented by his research supervisors, Professor Andrei G. Bulakh (1933-2020) and Dr. Mikhail D. Evdokimov (1940-2011, whose scientific interests included the mineralogy and petrology of world-famous alkaline intrusions in the Kola Peninsula, northern Karelia and East Siberia. Not surprisingly, Gregory's first peer-reviewed publication was a study of Murun pyroxenes, beautifully illustrated with his own hand drawings (Ivanyuk and Evdokimov, 1991).Gregory graduated in 1988, back in the days when university graduates were expected to 'work off' their free education for three years at an assigned place of employment, sometimes quite remote from one's home or Alma Mater. Gregory was fortunate enough to land a job at the Geological Institute of the Kola Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Apatity, a mediumsized town of scientists and miners in the foothills of the worldfamous Khibiny mountains. Located in the heart of the Kola