The Geology of Iran: Tectonic, Magmatism and Metamorphism

Dr. Mansour Ghorbani was born in Nanaj village, a rural district of Malayer County in the west of Iran in 1961. He completed his primary and secondary educations in his hometown by 1979. He graduated from high school in 1983. He studied geology at the University of Shahid Beheshti and concurrently Chemistry at Islamic Azad University. He continued his academic studies in geology at the University of Shahid Beheshti and received his masters (M.Sc.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees in 1993 and 1999, respectively. Following his academic accomplishments, he joined the geology faculty at the Shahid Beheshti University and has been teaching undergraduates, postgraduates and Ph.D. students till now. He currently holds the associate professor position at the University. From 1991 to 1996, he was involved in the treatise on the geology at geological survey of Iran. He wrote and compiled a lot of literatures on the geology and mineral deposits, such as economic deposits, soils, iron, antimony, arsenic, mercury, copper, lead and zinc in Iran. Aside from teaching, he has been working on international and national research projects with mining, oil and gas companies. The rewards and outcome of these years of studying and working are 39 books, more than 200 academic papers, supervising 7 research projects, advising and supervising of 75 theses in M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees, over 120 scientific and technical reports in reference to natural and mineral resources in Iran and Iranology, as well as the compilation of international metallogeny and gem distribution maps of the Middle East. He enjoys travelling around the country and abroad; he maintains that while visiting and working in various regions, he meets different ethnic groups with different cultures and traditions in Iran. He has learned how the habitat and the natural surroundings have a greater effect on the people's socio-economic aspects of life in some places than others. So, he wrote a comprehensive atlas of Iran, from tourism, ecotourism and geotourism point of view in 10 volumes in Persian. Years of working experiences and personal beliefs in private research work compelled him to establish his own research centre called Pars Geological Research Centre (Arianzamin) in 2002. He, from a sociocultural standpoint, endeavours to help countries and people who speak the same language and have had the same or similar cultures, to establish a long-lasting sociocultural bond with one another.