We are delighted to announce that the winners of the 2022 Gao Shan Young Scientist Award are Drs. Wenzhong Wang and Zhuosen Yao. Each year, this award honors no more than two early-career scientists (age ≤ 35) who have made outstanding contributions to geochemistry. The award is presented annually by the Gao Shan Young Scientist Award Foundation at China University of Geosciences (Wuhan). In December 2018, the nomination was launched for the first time, and this is the fifth year. The award selection is mainly based on the scientific merit of the nominee and the quality of the nomination. All candidates were evaluated and voted by forty-nine outstanding geochemists invited by the Foundation. Brief introduction of this year’s two winners are as follows:

Dr. Wenzhong Wang, University of Science and Technology of China

His research mainly focuses on first-principles investigation of the physical and chemical properties of planetary materials under extreme conditions and contributes significantly to our understanding of the water distribution inside Earth, the origins of lower-mantle seismic heterogeneities, and the origin and evolution of planetary volatile elements. He and his collaborators constructed a high-temperature and high-pressure mineral elastic database and constrained the water content in the mantle transition zone combined with seismological observations. His first-principles simulations reveal superionic H-bearing Fe alloys in the Earth’s inner core that can explain the density and low velocities of the inner core and indicate a water-rich Earth’s core. His research on the origins of Earth’s deep seismic heterogeneities shows that subducted oceanic crust and the residue from early magma ocean differentiation could be the sources of lower-mantle seismic heterogeneities with different length scales. He also made great progress in calculating the equilibrium isotope fractionation between minerals and fluids/melts and in predicting the equilibrium sulfur and nickel isotope fractionation between silicate and metallic melts at high pressures and temperatures. His work on isotope fractionation during planetary differentiation provides important constraints on the early planetesimal volatile evaporation and Earth’s late-stage accretion.

Dr. Zhuosen Yao, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)

His research contributes significantly to our understanding of the dynamic ore-forming processes in the mafic-ultramafic layered intrusions and magmatic sulfide deposits. He and his coworkers thermodynamically modeled the genesis of mantle-derived primary magma in different tectonic settings and mantle sources to trace the behaviors of chalcophile elements and to explore the controls exerted on its Ni-Cu-Co ore potential. With the ongoing paradigm shift in how magmatic systems are pictured, his research has nicely depicted the multi-stage formation of crystal mush and consequent percolation of interstitial melt in deep-seated magma chamber and proposed a brand-new crustal assimilation model to address the litho-metallogenesis of layered intrusions. Finally, for the first time, he adopted the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to model the ore-forming processes, investigated the upward transport of ore-forming materials in crystal mush and magmatic conduit, and examined their compositional evolution and accumulation during the final magma propagation and emplacement in shallow sedimentary basins.

Gao Shan Young Scientist Award Foundation

June 6, 2023