Victor Linetsky
Victor Pylypovych Linetsky (born January 31, 1901; died in Lviv, Ukraine, year unknown) was a Russian petroleum hydrogeologist. He challenged the idea that oil moves mainly from source rocks to reservoirs and that long-distance migration is common. He developed a model of vertical oil migration from deep underground to the upper crust and explained how seismic shocks can create hydraulic effects in fluid-filled fault zones.
He finished gymnasium in 1918 and graduated in 1930 from the Leningrad Mining Institute as a mining petroleum engineer. He worked for LenGas, GIProVod, and the People’s Commissariat of NarkomZem. During World War II he was evacuated to Kazakhstan. After the war he worked at the HydroEnergyProject Institute in Moscow, then for WodGeo in Kharkiv and later for UkrHydroEnergyProject Institute in Lviv. He earned a PhD in Engineering in 1945 with a thesis on the sagging of loess-like rocks at Kharkiv University.
In 1948 he joined the Lviv Branch of the Institute of Geological Sciences under Vladimir Porfiriev. From 1953 he led the Hydrogeology and Engineering Department, later known as the Oil and Gas Migration Department. He defended his Dr.Sc. in 1959 on the physical principles of oil migration at the USSR Academy of Science Oil Institute in Moscow and became a professor in 1967. Linetsky published about 50 research papers, including five monographs.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:36 (CET).