George Ter-Stepanian

George Ter-Stepanian (Armenian: Գեորգ Եսայու Տեր-Ստեփանյան, Russian: Георгий Исаевич Тер-Степанян; April 16 [O.S. April 3] 1907 – December 4, 2006) was a Soviet Armenian scientist in the field of soil mechanics and engineering geology, one of the founders of the landslide studies, and the originator of the theories of the depth creep of slopes, the structural composition of post-ice-age clay and suspension pressure acting against filtration. Ter-Stepanian was a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.

Ter-Stepanian spent his final years in the United States and in Canada. He passed away short of four months to his one-hundredth year of life on December 4, 2006, in Montreal, Canada.

Ter-Stepanian was a holder of several patents valid in the USSR, including those for the creation of instruments and devices to study the physico-mechanical attributes of soils. He also held patents in Canada (1999) and USA (2001) for the above-mentioned method.

After WWII, Ter-Stepanian decided to devote his expertise to the development of his homeland Armenia, and moved to Yerevan, the capital of the Republic. He was invited to work at the newly organized Armenian Academy of Sciences, where he founded and headed up the Department of the Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology. Later on, he reorganized the Department to form the Laboratory of Geomechanics, which he directed until 1994. Along with his scientific work, Ter-Stpeanian significantly contributed to Armenia's environmental protection.

In 1994, Ter-Stepanian moved to the United States, where he was granted permanent residency as a distinguished scientist. Ter-Stepanian continued his scientific work in the United States. He discovered an unknown force of nature, the Suspension Force, as well as the Method for the settling of suspensions with the use of seepage force and vibrations. This was an important finding for environmental protection.

In the early 1990-s he also authored a manuscript Early Diagnostics and Treatment of Landslides, which was commissioned by A.A. Balkema Rotterdam Brookfield but sadly for the scientific community, it was not published. An online publication is presently under way.

His passion for the environmental protection inspired him to write a science-fiction novel with an intent to reach out to the general public to raise awareness of the vital importance and urgency of protecting the environment. Ter-Stepanian authored a science-fiction novel dedicated to the environmental protection titled Разумнее людей, published in Armenia in 1989 in Russian, and translated into English and published posthumously in Canada in 2008 under the title Wiser than Humans.

In 1984, Ter-Stepanian formulated the notion of the Technogene – a new geological epoch that has resulted from the influence of human activity. This idea was developed in his monograph entitled Beginning of the Quinary, or the Technogene: Engineering-geological Analysis (Yerevan, 1985), and was also presented at several congresses and in scientific papers.

In 1975 Ter-Stepanian founded and acted as a chief editor of another scientific journal – «Reports of the Geomechanics Laboratory», published in Russian.

In the field of engineering geodesy, Ter-Stepanian developed a graphical differential method for measuring landslide displacements based on the use of the nomogram. The results are summarized in his monograph Geodetic Methods for Investigating the Dynamics of Landslides, which was published in two editions in Russian (Moscow, 1972 and 1979) and in German (Leipzig, 1976).

Ter-Stepanian was the founder and chief editor of the trilingual (Armenian, Russian, English) scientific journal «Problems of Geomechanics», which was published between 1967 and 1988 and received wide international recognition. Articles by major Soviet and international scientists appeared the journal, many translated by Ter-Stepanian himself.

Ter-Stepanian compiled the Russian section of the eight-language Dictionary of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering – Technical Terms, Symbols and Definitions (Zurich, 1967; Toronto, 1981), published a dictionary of international symbols for soil mechanics and engineering geology in Russian and Armenian, and collaborated in the specification of the international terminology for rock mechanics in English, French and German. In 1978 he completed a trilingual (English, Russian, Armenian) dictionary of geological and geotechnical terms and definitions, unique in its kind, which regrettably was not published.

In the field of applied mathematics, he proposed a theory of chain nomograms with rectilinear scales, based on the application of new concepts — namely, the coefficient of scale and the dimensionless parameter of transformation. These allow to calculate algorithms and to compose rational nomograms for the functions of many variables. He then included the results in the monograph Engineering Chain Nomograms with Rectilinear Scales, published in Yerevan in 1965. On the basis of the theory of nomograms, he developed a method of projecting the anamorphosis of experimental curves to generate empirical formulas, which allows the parameters of equations of rational-linear functions to be determined by grapho-analytical methods.

In the late 1960s, Ter-Stepanian put up his opposition to the use of the Ararat Valley, a seismically active zone containing the only artesian water source in the region and located only 26 kilometers from Yerevan, the Republic's capital, as a building site for a new Nuclear power plant. He pointed out the hazardous and irreversible consequences of such a decision and proposed a safer, more appropriate site. Nevertheless, the project went ahead. However, when in the 1980s the construction of a radioactive dumpsite near the existing Armenian Nuclear Station located in the middle of the Ararat Valley was proposed, Ter-Stepanian launched a strong opposition, involving the voice and the expertise of world-renowned scientists and global organizations, and succeeded in averting the construction of the radioactive dumpsite.

In the field of geology, as early as in 1958, Ter-Stepanian was the first to suggest that salt tectonics were present in Armenia. Discovered first in Yerevan, this was subsequently confirmed in his studies of the mechanism of landslide burial in the High Pliocene Epoch in the ravine of the Hrazdan River and in the Ararat Valley.

Ter-Stepanian's greatest contribution was to the preservation of nature and the environment in Armenia. In 1956 he voiced his opposition to the government's decision to make an extensive use of the water from Lake Sevan, a distinctive and unique high-mountain water source, for energy purposes. Using technical and economic projections, he demonstrated the error and the inexpediency of the project, warning that it would lead to the irreparable ruin of the lake. As a result of his intervention and, especially, his constant and decisive battles against the realisation of this venture, the project was reviewed and the Lake Sevan was saved.

Even early in his career Ter-Stepanian's expertise and knowledge was highly sought after and he was asked to join Soviet teams abroad. From 1937 to 1939 he worked in Tehran, Tabriz and Isfahan (Iran) as a geotechnical engineer in charge of the construction of elevators and other major facilities. From 1946 to 1949 Ter-Stepanian worked in Germany representing Armenian Academy of Sciences.

The most noteworthy was the invitation by Prof. Karl von Terzaghi, the father of Soil Mechanics, to present a paper to the First International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, as early as in 1936 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was followed by his subsequent participation in the London, Paris, Montreal, Mexico City, Moscow, Gdansk, Tokyo, Stockholm, San Francisco congresses. He also contributed to early international and regional conferences on Rock mechanics in Lisbon and Belgrade, on Engineering Geology in New Delhi, Paris, San Paulo, Madrid, Lisbon, Athens, Vancouver and Landslides in Tokyo, Prague, New Delhi, Toronto, Lausanne, Kyoto, Trondheim. As a prominent specialist in the field of Soil Mechanics and Engineering Geology, he was invited frequently to give lectures in Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Japan, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and other countries.

George Ter-Stepanian earned a Diploma in Civil Engineering from the Georgian Polytechnical Institute, in 1931. At the same time, he studied in the English Department of the Institute of Foreign Languages. He defended his PhD dissertation in 1939 and his post-doctoral dissertation in 1956, both at the Leningrad Civil Engineering Institute, presently the Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering. In 1960, he earned the scientific rank of a professor. In 1977, Ter-Stepanian was elected a Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, and in 1996 he became a Full Member of the same Academy.

Ter-Stepanian embarked on his scientific work in 1930 at the Transcaucasian Institute of Structures while still a student at the Georgian Polytechnical Institute. From 1932 to 1941 he worked at various research institutes in Leningrad (Saint-Petersburg) and held a teaching position at the Leningrad Civil Engineering Institute (1931–1937 and 1939–1941). His research activities focused on landslides and pile foundations of bridges, as well as on investigation of internal soil friction.

In the field of soil mechanics, Ter-Stepanian observed, as early as in 1930s, the phenomenon of the jump-like reorganization in the soil structure along faults. He was the first to establish the metastability of the structure of high-sensitivity late-glacial marine clays and to develop methods of studying them, which proved to be of a great economic importance.

Ter-Stepanian was born on April 16, 1907, in Tiflis (Tbilisi), Georgia. His father, Isaiah Zakharievich Ter-Stepanian, was a veterinary physician, whose ancestors moved from Ani, a city in Western Armenia (presently in Turkey), to Georgia in the 14th century. His mother, Lucy Harutyunovna Ter-Stepanian (née Harutyunian) was a teacher of Russian and Armenian languages.