The International Medical Geology Association Regional Division Russia – NIS (IMGA RD) was introduced in March 2006 following a resolution from the annual meeting of the Russian Geological Society Medical Geology Division (MGD ROSGEO) held at the Fedorovskii All-Russian Research Institute for Mineral Resources (VIMS, Moscow).

The founding of the IMGA RD was shaped by cooperation between MGD ROSGEO and IMGA Headquarters. Since 2005, MGD ROSGEO has maintained a particular organ to promote contact between the IMGA and the NIS medical geology community. This organ now forms the organizational basis for IMGA RD. Furthermore, because of his past collaboration with the IMGA, Dr. Iosif F. Volfson, science secretary of both MGD ROSGEO and VIMS, was recommended by IMGA headquarters to chair the newly formed IMGA RD. His position as chair was confirmed after receiving wide support for his candidacy from scientists and practitioners in a number of NIS countries. Recently, several widely known scientists have been appointed to chair regional subdivisions within the IMGA RD. These new chairs are: Dr. Igor L. Komov – Ukraine; Dr. Ospan B. Beyseev – Kazakstan; Dr. Abdulkhak R. Faiziev – Tajikstan; and Dr. German I. Karatayev – Belarus.

As an Integral Chapter of the International Medical Geology Association, the RD Russia – NIS has a web page allocation within the domain of IMGA’s website (http://www.medicalgeology.org) at which there are provisions for contributions from all would-be RD members and other interested correspondents. Activities of the RD are also reported from time to time in the IMGA’s Newsletter published by the Working Group of the Commission on Geological Sciences for Environmental Planning.

Broadly defined, medical geology examines the impact of geologic materials and geologic processes on living organisms. Though medical geology is an emerging discipline, it has a firm foundation within the Russia – NIS scientific community.

Current research in the fields of geology, geochemistry, biogeochemistry, soil sciences, and medicine has been conditioned by the pioneering work of several of our compatriots in developing environmental geosciences. Specifically, the research of V. Vernadskii, A. Sysin, A. Vinogradov, A. Perelman, A. Yeremeyev, V. Lukashov, Y. Sayet has attracted many followers within Russia and NIS.

Medical geology attempts to unite different branches of medicine and geology into a comprehensive system of knowledge and inquiry in order to study the health of living organisms. The joint undertakings of members of the geological and medical communities allows us to identify specific natural and technological sources of potential hazard, to increase both preventive measures against and treatments for the main environmental, occupational and associated diseases, and to have significant role in the decision-making.

The base organizations in Russia and NIS carrying out research in the field of medical geology specifically must be mentioned: St. Petersburg State University (Russia), Research Institute for Mineralogy Geochemistry and Crystal Chemistry of Rare Elements (IMGRE, Moscow, Russia), Fedorovskii All-Russian Research Institute for Mineral Resources (VIMS, Moscow, Russia), Geology Institute of the Urals Scientific Center of RAS (Syktyvkar, Russia), Institute for Geology (Dushanbe, Tajikistan), Polytechnic Institute (Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan), Institute for Environmental Geochemistry (Kyiv, Ukraine), Institute for Geochemistry and Geophysics (Minsk, Belarus), Medical Academy of Postgraduate Studies (St.-Petersburg, Russia), Institute for Precambrian Geology and Geochronology (St.-Petersburg, Russia), Institute for Environmental Geosciences (Moscow, Russia), Russian State Medical University (Moscow, Russia), Sysin Scientific-Research Institute of Human Ecology and Environmental Hygiene (Moscow, Russia), Polytechnic University (Irkutsk, Russia), Polytechnic University (Tomsk, Russia).

Currently the most important fields within Russia – NIS are:

Highlighting a Contribution to Urban Medical Geology and Mining Medical Geology from the Research Institute for Geochemistry and Crystal Chemistry of Rare Elements (Written by Dr. Olga V. Menchinskaya, IMGRE, Moscow, Russia)

For more than quarter of a century, IMGRE research has been devoted to the developing of tools for the ecological assessment of urban and mining areas. Human environmental quality assessment is carried out by using medico-epidemiological information based on the spatial analysis and synthesis of various interdisciplinary data concerning environment parameters in the succession "pollution sources – environment components – human being".

"ECOSCAN" technology was developed in IMGRE for such projects in the early 90’s. It is based upon the existing dependence between environmental geochemical parameters and epidemiological markers of disturbance in population’s health. To create a more thorough evaluation of a certain locale ecological assessments are supplemented by the modeling and calculating ecological hazards on a given habitat and combined with recommendations for the rehabilitation of the disturbed natural habitats and for preventive medical measures for the local population’s health.

Longstanding IMGRE research has revealed the following tendencies and regularities:

• The environment in the big and industrial cities differs drastically from the natural environment. It is gradually taking on an artificial look.
• The pollution of industrial centers depends on the concentration and the spectrum of xenobiotics and the forms of their existence, determined by productive saturation and the character of industry.
• Negative tendencies in the populations’ health are caused by multi-component and integrated effects of xenobiotics and are complicated by high concentration of technological devices used daily in close proximity to human beings.
• The list of technological factors negative affecting certain systems of the human organism (noise-level, electromagnetic fields, ultraviolet radiation, the stressful state caused by the intensive life rhythm in modern cities, etc.) is increasing constantly.

The tendencies stated above lead to the principal impossibility of authentically determining the negative effect of any separate technological factor. Pathological manifestations in our health supposedly connected with technological environmental contamination and with the effect of one negative factor exist not individually but represent the result of the overlap of multiple technological pollution processes, as well as social, hereditary and other factors. At the same time the mechanism of synergetic effects of two or more technological factors is unknown, and the leveling effect of various contaminants is not accounted for. Available data on the combined effects of technological factors are few, incomplete and often conflicting.

The impossibility of a comprehensive assessment of the impact of pollution on the environment and a population’s health, as well as the variety of individual reactions to contaminants makes the science refuse from intricate and hang-the-expense approaches (aimed at analyzing the maximum number of factors) and look for the other more applicable approaches.

Methods of environment assessment thus must make it possible to carry-out rapid and accurate preliminary assessments of technological pollution levels by determining the most negative factors and then defining a list of diseases to be used to assess the level of habitat troubles in the epidemiological practice. The choice of the natural environment for carrying out geochemical researches, epidemiological markers and chemical compounds with maximum negative impact, is determined for every concrete case on the given area. The data resulting from preliminary assessments can be used to inform administrative decisions at any level of research as well as to form the basis for the organization of further investigations and the rehabilitation of the natural environment and for the carrying out the preventive medical measures.

IMGRE has developed a technology (ECOSCAN) to assess the impact level of pollution-induced processes on an environment and its population. ECOSCAN is an improved express assessment tool that analyzes the dependence of sickness rate on habitat geometric parameters, and forecasts possible ecological hazards from present chemical agents singled out for having the most negative effect on peoples’ health. The technology is based on a original mathematical apparatus which can reveal and classify stable technological associations of various toxic compounds, integrating different interdisciplinary data (to assess medical consequences of pollution-induced processes in the system "habitat - health" on the basis of a detailed geochemical research of the environment).

Cities, towns, settlements, industrial centers, mining\petroleum-refining areas, oil-processing enterprises etc., can be the objects of research.

The optimal scale of ecological and geochemical surveys is 1:25 000 – 1:100 000 (International System of Units).

The resulting integrated map makes it possible to assess life conditions in the given areas and thus develop the principles to prevent and correct ecologically caused diseases and take concrete measures to rehabilitate the natural ecosystems.

The ECOSCAN-technology has been widely praised in the assessment of technological pollution over some Russian regions and abroad. The authors, IMGRE scientists, were awarded both the Lomonosov Fund Diploma for their ecological research on the cities of the Russian North (1996) and a Premium of Russian Federation Government in the field of Science and Technology (1998). A considerable part of this ecological research was conducted in Moscow. The territories of individual districts and prefectures were fundamentally detailed and a general map of technological pollution in Moscow was created. These works were included in the Moscow Ecological Maps Atlas (1997) as well as in the monograph "Moscow. The Geology and the City" (1997) which was awarded with Premium of Moscow Administration in the Field of Environmental Protection. The ECOSCAN-technology has also been applied in works supported by INTAS-grants (East Transbaikalia, grant № 97-0721).

We are pleased to invite you to participate in the International Symposium, which will take place for the third time in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. This highly successful conference series began in Saint-Petersburg, in 2002 and has been held in 2004, in that place in Saint-Petersburg University.

The 3d International Symposium is dedicated to the exchange of recent advancements in biogeochemistry (bio-inert interactions in lithosphere, biogenic rock-and ore-forming processes, fossilisation of living organisms, stone in living organism, problems of environmental mineralogy and geochemistry). Special sections Stone in living organism and Environmental mineralogy and geochemistry are devoted to problem of medical geology. The conference provides a forum for professionals, regulators, and students to present their most recent findings and to discuss with colleagues from around the world state-of-the-art methodologies, analytical techniques, and process development.

Contact: spboe@mail.ru