Head Usenko Valeriy Pavlovich

Pride of the prewar University was petrography-mineralogical and paleontological museums - one of the oldest not only in Odessa, but also in Ukraine. The most valuable collection of the former was generated by professor R.O. Prendel, who became the initiator of the introduction of the law, according to which (under the petition of V.I. Vernadsky) for the first time in world practice the meteorites became of scientific value and they should be brought to scientific establishments. After the death of R.O. Prendel the director of a museum became his pupil professor M.D. Sidorenko. Holding this post he met 1917 and fulfilled the scientific responsibility with renunciation.

In Soviet times Odessa collection was replenished by interchanging with the Committee of meteorites of the Academy of Science of the USSR. Unique in the University is the collection of the meteorites " Old Boriskino", "Gross Libental ", "Zabroddya", "Odessa", and in the whole Odessa collection is concerned one of the best in Europe (85 names) and entered into the catalogue of meteorites of the Academy of Science of the USSR. Since the time of foundation of the University many public contracts on development of processing of mineral components and caustoboliths have been carried out at the museum.

A collection of artifacts of the Sabotinovskaya and Chernyakhovskaya cultures on the territory of the Odessa region is formed in the geological museum. Artifacts are represented by tools made of rocks. Their research is carried out in the framework of a new direction - archeological geology, which uses geological research methods, in particular mineralogical and petrographic, to reconstruct the distribution routes of materials and tools in the Northern Black Sea region.