 He was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1929, and served as its vice-president from 1936 to 1939.Gubkin's book "The Study of Oil" (1932) developed theory on the origins of oil and the conditions necessary for the formation of oil deposits, and laid out the principles of oil geology.He led the studies of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly from 1920 to 1925, which eventual led to the discovery of huge iron deposits.