Contemporary Geoscientists of China
By George Tsang (Hong Kong), CPG
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MO, Xuan-xue (岩石学家莫宣学院士)
Ref:CGC-11
(Petrology Expert)
Interview at the China University of
Geosciences (Beijing)
Professor MO, Xuan-xue was born in Rong
Shui (融水), Guangxi province in December
1938. He is the most renowned petrologist
in China, a PhD supervisor and professor of
the China University of Geosciences. He
was elected as academician of Chinese
Academy of Sciences in 2009. He has been
the provost of the College of Graduates and
Vice President of the China University of
Geosciences since 1993.
Professor MO was the project review expert
committee member of the 6th, 7th and 10th
sessions of the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (1996~ 2006), Vice
chairman of the Academic Committee of the
30th International Geological Congress
(1996), Vice director of the Earth Interior
Chemistry and Volcanoes Committee of the
Chinese Society for Mineralogy, Petrology
and Geochemistry (since 2000), Vice
director of the continental dynamics
committee of the Chinese Geophysical
Society (1997~ 2005), Vice chief editor of
the “Geological Journal of China
Universities” (since 1995), Vice chief editor
of “Acta Petrologica Sinica” (1999~ 2001)
and editorial board member (since 2002),
Chief Editor of “Geoscience Frontiers”,
Vice chief editor of “Acta Petrologica et
Mineralogica” (since 2009), Editorial
advisory broad member of “Himalaya
Geology” (since 1999), IGCP430 Steering
Committee Executive member, Vice
chairman of The Society of Economic
Geologists (SEG)- responsible for Asian
region, the expert consultant committee
member of “973” project.
Family
The parents of Professor MO had no plan
for the future profession of their son. The
father was a colonel during the SinoJapanese war, he taught at Nanjing Military
School after liberation, but the family
moved to Yunnan province several years
later. The mother was a housewife.
Professor MO has a brother who graduated
in hydraulic engineering; he is a teacher and
over seventy years old. The first motivation
for MO to study geology was simply that he
could go sightseeing for free. His parents
had no objection.
Professor MO has only one son who is a
sales manager in a business firm, the grand
daughter was 6 1/2 years old in 2011 as
shown in the picture below, and is not
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studying at that time. The son graduated
from Beijing Institute of Technology, the
daughter-in-law is a medical specialist in
heart surgery. She graduated from Beijing
Medical School. The wife of MO was his
classmate and specialized in palaeontology.
They fell in love only after graduation.
graduation in 1960.
CHI, Ji-shang ( 池 际 尚 ), teacher of
Professor MO and former Premier WEN,
Jia-bao (温家宝)
Family photo
Professor MO received a systematic training
in geological exploration starting in 1953.
He was trained at the Nanjing Geological
School (Vocational high school level). He
was recommended for admission to Beijing
Geological College (recently the China
University
of
Geosciences)
for
undergraduate studies. He was taught by
many renowned scholars, such as GAO,
Ping (高平) and MA, Wan-jun (马万钧) for
“General Geology”, YANG, Zun-yi (杨遵仪)
for palaeontology, WANG, Hong-zhen (王鸿
祯) for geological history, CHI, Ji-shang (池
际 尚 ) for petrology and optical
crystallography etc. The study was so hard
because the government compressed the
four years high school into three years,
while the five years undergraduate course
was compressed into just four years to
satisfy the huge demand for geological
manpower in the country. Professor MO
remained in school as an instructor after
When Professor MO was in early high
school, he read a report about a lady
geologist who rejected the offer of her
teacher at University of California, Berkeley
to stay at USA, she returned to China on
Oct., 1950 with other great masters, such as
HUA, Luo-geng (华罗庚), DENG, Jia-xian
(邓稼先). The event deeply affected the
heart of young MO. The lady is Professor
CHI, Ji-shang who became MO’s teacher
after some years.
“The elegant teacher” by Professor MO
In memory of the 95th birthday anniversary
of Professor CHI and the 60th anniversary
of the China University of Geosciences,
Professor MO authored the book- “The
Elegant Teacher” (师者风范) in 2012 which
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was published by the Geological Publishing
House. The book is composed of articles
and pictures from the students, colleagues
and relatives of the great teacher.
Do more practical works
This is the motto of Professor MO who
insisted his students should learn more basic
knowledge.
“Diligence is the path to the mountain of
knowledge，hard-working is the boat to the
eternal sea of learning” (书山有路勤为径，
学海无涯苦作舟), the poem by HAN, Yu
(韩愈) is always quoted by Professor MO.
so a big evidence was missed.
Affection of Qinghai- Tibet plateau
Professor MO climbed Mount Qomolangma
(or Mount Everest), the tallest peak of
Himalayas
together
with
Chinese
Mountaineering Expedition in 1974 which
was the first time that MO had been to Tibet,
from where he studied the magmatic rocks
and ophiolite. After that MO had remained
in the area of Qinghai, Tibet and “Three
rivers” in south-west China for more than 6
years; all his trips were there. The region is
so important because it is in the location of
the transversal mountain range (Hengduan
mountain in Chinese) which separates China
into east and west portions. Professor MO is
regarded as “the man who decodes the
password of rocks”.
At Pulang (普朗) copper mine in Shangri-la,
Yunan
Professor Mo recalled a field trip of his
class with their teacher, Mr. YOU,
Zhen-dong (游振东) to inspect an outcrop
in Wu Tai (五台山) mountain, the students
felt bored after 3~ 5 minutes, but their
teacher had been studying the stone for
more than 20 minutes using a microscope.
When they returned to school, another
teacher, Professor MA, Xing-huan (马杏桓)
asked the class what did they find? The
students
said,
“nothing,
only
an
unconformity was found”. MA corrected
this and said it was a great discovery; that
means a very important evidence of
geological structural movement was found!
Professor MO induced the negligence by the
students was due to their lack of knowledge,
“Don’t regard magmatic rocks as lifeless, it
is very important to the study of evolution
of planets and earth. They contain a lot of
information about the deep structure of the
planet, they are the “secret of God”, the
messengers of transferring energy and
materials among the strata of earth”, MO
says.
Professor MO has supervised more than 43
PhD students and 20 master students. He
has currently (2013) twelve students (PhD
and master) under study. His plan is to
accept two students per year.
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in 1981. Professor Carmichael was famous
for his bad temper which was described as
volatile as the volcanoes, he was the director
of the department of geophysics. He was a
fellow of British Royal Society and a
renowned petrologist in volcanoes. Mo was
fortunate that he had not caught in an
eruption from his teacher. The Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory had produced
several Nobel Prize winners.
The Qulong ( 驱龙 ) copper mine in the
Gangdese belt of Tibet
Professor MO proposed the collision of
India and Asia continents started at 65 Ma.
He also proposed the concept of “Two crusts,
two mechanisms” after persistent study; that
is, the crust is composed of new crust and
recycled crust, the huge thickness of crust
was caused by the squeezed structure and
the input of new materials. The thickening
happened mainly during 50~ 25 Ma, the
volcanic activities were moving towards the
east which indicates the horizontal
movement of the deep magma.
At Wyllie laboratory in 1999
At Qinghai (青海)
Study in the University of California,
Berkeley
Professor MO was sent to study “magma”
under Professor Carmichael in the
University of California, Berkeley upon the
recommendation of Professor CHI, Ji-shang
At California Institute of Technology with
Fellow Willie and Department head Stolper
In the first meeting, Professor Carmichael
gave MO three professional books and a lot
of articles to read. He suggested MO
specialize in the “thermodynamics of
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magma” Professor Carmichael was satisfied
with MO’s first data in an experiment after
one month.
Professor MO published his article “The
partial molar volume of Fe2O3 in
multi-component silicate liquids and
pressure dependence of oxygen fugacity in
magmas” in 1982 which was quoted by
Nature, GCA, JGR and other international
journals more than 111 times. The article
was considered as important progress in
melt thermodynamics by two national
reports of USA.
The breakthrough of “three rivers”
The “three rivers” refers to the three parallel
rivers, Jin Sha River (金沙江), Lan Cang
River (澜沧江) and Nu River (怒江) in
Yunnan province. Professor MO proposed
the concept of “Two metallogenic systems,
three controlling factors” and the direction
for minerals search from the study of
magmatic effects on Tethys metallogenic
domain in the three rivers region.
The two systems refer to the superposition
of Tethys metallogenic system and collision
and after-collision metallogenic system. The
three controlling factors include the
heterogeneity
of
geochemistry
of
crust-mantle composition, Tethys affection
and collision of Asia and India continents.
Can Petrology apply to the search of
minerals ?
Under the guideline of Professor MO and
his group that the Yi Dun island arc (义敦岛
弧 ) was an extensional arc, so sulphide
lumps of lead- zinc deposit would probably
be found in the rift valley which was
verified later and a big scale porphyry
copper deposit which has a reserve of more
than 5 million tons was found in the south
of Yi Dun island arc as the zone was a
pressed arc. Professor MO and his group in
1985 proposed the model of three
requirements of extensional arc, rift valley
in the arc and closed or half closed
deepwater basin for the application of
petrology in searching minerals which are
actually the characteristics for volcanogenic
massive sulphide deposits (VMS).
Prospect of research
Professor MO concluded the research of
earth science in three points. First, under a
concept of one earth; secondly, two main
topics include earth dynamics and weather
change; thirdly, the basic objectives of
scientific research are preservation of
resources, environment protection and
disaster prevention. He says China has a
vast territory of different geological features,
several targets of research should be
conducted, such as the evolution of
Qinghai-Tibet plateau, the craton in eastern
China, the subduction and exhumation of
the Chinese continent. Professor MO is
studying the difference of magmatic
reactions and structure between eastern and
western China.
Conference in France
We can see that the success of Professor
MO was due to his persistence and
hardwork. His long residence in the region
resulted in his breakthrough in decoding the
rocks in the area. Professor MO had the
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perfect basic training for geology, first in
Beijing Geological College in 1956 and
later study in the University of California
which helped the growth of the master.
Awards and Prizes
National award for science and technology
progress (First class), natural science (First
class) award of Hubei province, two times,
the award of Science and Technology
achievement (Third class) from the Ministry
of Geology and Mineral resource and an
award of Science and Technology
achievement (Third class).
Publications
Professor MO has published 170 articles
and 6 monographs and 15 verbal reports
delivered for international academic
conferences including 58 SCI articles. His
SCI articles were quoted 929 times by other
scholars. One of his Chinese articles was
awarded as one of “the most influenceable
hundred articles of the country” in 2003;
Another two articles were among the top 25
hottest articles of “Science Direct” in Earth
and Planetary Science (Chem. Geol/
Lithos).
His articles and monograph include the
following:
The partial molar volume of Fe2O3 in
multicomponent silicate liquids and pressure
dependence of oxygen fugacity in magmas.
Mineralogical Magazine 45, 1982，237-245；
Volcano-tectonic setting of polymetallic
Massive sulphide deposits in NujiangLancangjiang- Jinshajiang area, China, R.V.
Kirkham & W.D. Sinclair (eds) Workshop
Notebook of IUGS/UNESCO Deposit
Modeling Program Stratabound Copper
Deposits,1988, 355-365；
Volcanism and the evolution of Tethys in
Sanjiang area. Jour. of Southeast Asian
Earth
Sciences 9(4), 1994, 325-333,
Pergamon ；
Magmatism and thermal history of Tibetan
Plateau. Special Issue for the 13th
Himalaya-Karakoram-Tibet
Workshop,
Geological Bulletin of University of
Peshawar vol.31, 1998, 133-135；
Three types of lithospheric structure in the
Tibetan Plateau. Special Issue for the 14th
Himalaya-Karakoram-Tibet Workshop ,
Kloster Ettal Germany, TERRA NOSTRA,
1999, No.2, 99-100；
Heterogeneity of the lithosphere in Tibetan
Plateau: Evidence From Igneous rocks.
Earth Science Frontiers. 2000, Vol. 7.Suppl.,
322-323；
Volcanics/ intrusions related gold and
copper deposits in SW China, The PDAC
2004 International Convention, Toronto
2004. 3. (invited);
Timing of magma mixing in Guandise
magmatic belt during the India- Asia
collision: zircon SHIRMP U-Pb dating, Acta
Geologica Sinica (English edition), 2005, 79
(1): 66-76;
Copper and gold metallogeny in the Tethyan
domain in China. In: JW Mao and FP
Bierlein (eds), Mineral Deposit Research:
Meeting the Global Challenge, Proceedings
of the Eighth Biennial SGA Meeting,
Beijing, 18-21 August, 2005, vol. 2, Chapter
11-8, 1247-1250, Springer；
Petrology
and
geochemistry
of
postcollisional volcanic rocks from the
Tibetan plateau: Implications for lithosphere
heterogeneity and collision- induced
asthenospheric mantle flow. Geological
Society of America, 2006, special paper 409:
508-530;
Mantle contributions to crustal thickening
during continental collision: Evidence from
Cenozoic igneous rocks in southern Tibet.
Lithos, 2007, 96: 225-242;
Contribution of syncollisional felsic
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magmatism to continental crust growth: A
case study of the Paleogene Linzizong
volcanic succession in southern Tibet.
Chemical Geology, 2008, 250, 49-67;
Mantle input to the crust in southern
Gandese, Tibet, during the Cenozoic: zircon
HF isotopic evidence. Journal of Earth
Science, 2009, 20: 241-249;
References:
1. LIU, Jiang (刘江)，Heart with QinghaiTibet Plateau, Realistic and Innovative,
Chinese Geological Education, 2012, Vol1
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