Nils Gustaf Nordenskiöld (12 October 1792 – 21 February 1866) was a Finnish mineralogist and traveller. He was the father of Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, a mineralogist and polar explorer
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Life
Nordenskiöld was born on 12 October 1792, in Mäntsälä in southern Finland, which was then part of the Kingdom of Sweden. After studying mineralogy in Helsingfors, now better known as Helsinki, and in Sweden, Nordenskiöld was appointed an inspector of mines in Finland. Finland had by now been transferred to the Russian Empire, as an autonomous Grand Duchy.
On 3 October 1819, Nordenskiöld was elected a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Academy had been established pursuant to the order of the Peter I of Russia by the Decree of the Ruling Senate dated 28 January (8 February) 1724. In 1853, he was also elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Nordenskiöld described and discovered a number of minerals previously unknown in Finland and Russia. In 1820, Nordenskiöld published a treatise, which was renowned as the first scientific handbook on Finnish minerals. He also published a number of articles in foreign journals, which brought him to notice far beyond the Nordic countries. In future years, he was to ensure that his son, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, shared this knowledge and became renowned as an explorer in his own right.