News

Miss Jessie Kwan Long-ching (right), under the supervision of Professor Zhao Guochun, conducts her research with the aid of the Electron Probe Micro-Analyzer (EPMA).

Miss Jessie Kwan Long-ching, a year-4 undergraduate student in our Department has just published a paper entitled “Metamorphic P-T path of mafic granulites from Eastern Hebei: Implications for the Neoarchean tectonics of the Eastern Block, North China Craton” in Gondwana Research, a leading peer-reviewed international journal (2015 SCI impact factor = 8.743). Jessie’s paper was produced from the result of her Final Year Project in which she carried out a detailed pressure-temperature evolution study on ~2.5 billion year old high-grade metamorphic rocks (mafic granulites) from Eastern Hebei Province, China. The result shows that these rocks from the Taipingzhai area experienced metamorphism that is characterized by an anticlockwise P-T path involving isobaric cooling, reflecting an origin related to the underplating of mantle-derived magmas, not consistent with subduction and collision processes under a plate tectonics regime. Jessie’s achievement underscores the abilities of our undergraduates and will no doubt inspire other HKU students’ interests in doing scientific research and having their work published in international journals.

Jessie’s research was supervised by Professor Zhao Guochun, who is an outstanding researcher in the supercontinent and metamorphic petrology fields. Most recently, Prof. Zhao was selected as the Laureate of the 29th Khwarizmi International Award in 2016. 

Congratulations Jess and Prof. Zhao!