CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF MARTYN MATVIIOVYCH SLYVKO

Abstract

November 2026 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Martyn Matviiovych Slyvko, a longtime Associate Professor at the Department of Mineralogy at Lviv University, candidate of geological and mineralogical sciences, and a well-known mineralogist and geochemist. He graduated from the Faculty of Geology in 1951, and since then his entire life and scientific and pedagogical activities have been connected with the Department of Mineralogy. The scientist's scientific output includes almost 80 scientific works, including a monograph (1955) and a textbook on geochemistry in three parts, written in Ukrainian (1965, 1966, 1975). Almost 50 % of M. Slyvko's scientific works are devoted to minerals of the tourmaline group. He investigated the morphology of crystals, their colour (and its geochemical significance), density, chemical composition, rare and scattered elements, isomorphic substitutions, inclusions of mineralforming solutions (including the mechanisms of their formation), crystal growth (free growth, regeneration), mechanisms of repulsion and capture of solid particles by growing crystals, and face sculpture. The scientist dealt with the issues of tourmalinization processes in granites and pegmatites and the place of tourmaline in the formation of various pegmatites (mica, rare-metal, etc.), worked on the classification of minerals of the tourmaline group, and began to apply mathematical statistics to the study of the mineral's constitution. A number of works have been devoted to various aspects of regional mineralogy, the history of science, and the development of mineralogy. The problems of the geochemical direction, which were studied in depth by M. Slyvko, are related, first of all, to the phenomenon of isomorphism in minerals, isomorphic substitutions of chemical elements, the relationship between the periodic system of elements and isomorphism. Martyn Matviiovych was an excellent teacher, teaching a number of basic and specialized courses in mineralogy and geochemistry. He was loved by his students and respected by his colleagues. And in general, he was a talented and meticulous scientist, an extremely erudite and positive person, and a true patriot of Ukraine.