Gregor von Helmersen

Gregor von Helmersen or Grigory Petrovich Helmersen (, – ) was a Baltic German geologist. Biography Helmersen was born in Duckershof, Livonia (now in Estonia) and went to boarding school in St. Petersburg. He graduated from the University of Dorpat in 1825 and joined the finance ministry. He accompanied Alexander von Humboldt into the Orenburg region and was recommended, along with E.K. Hoffman, by the minister E.F. Kankrin to be sent for higher education. The two travelled and listened to lectures in the universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Bonn. In 1835 he was put in the Corps of Mining Engineers and in 1838 he became professor of geology in the Mining Institute at Saint Petersburg of which he was also director. In 1839, along with Karl Ernst von Baer, he founded the first serial natural scientific publication in Russia known as Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Russischen Reiches.