Abstract:

Professor Deng Jinfu was an outstanding petrologist and tectono-petrologist,who made significant contributions to petrogenesis, petro-tectonics, crust-mantle deep processes, and ore mineralization,and cultivating high-level scientific and technological talents in geoscience of China. His achievements include: combining petrology with fundamental disciplines, especially advancing the formation and development of Petrophysicochemistry, which propelled petrology from descriptive science to theoretical frameworks; accurately determining relationships between petrotectonic assemblages and tectonic environments, and, on this basis, analyzing China’s tectonics and their temporal evolution, thereby advancing tectono-petrology; leadingthe compilation of China’s first 1∶2500000 tectonic map of intrusive rocks and contributing substantially to national mineral resource potential assessments; revealing crust-mantle structures and deep processes through petrological probing, with pioneering work on Mesozoic-Neogene lithosphere thinning in eastern China; proposing theories and methodologies for continental dynamics studies, including a new model for Chinese lithospheric evolution: continental roots-plume tectonics; establishing China’s first lithosphere-scale tectonic domain division and proposing a three-tiered crust-mantle dynamic system for the mainland; and demonstrating that upheaval in the lithosphere-asthenosphere system drives mineralization “explosions”, while three-dimensional discontinuous reactivation at the lithospheric scale creates optimal ore-hosting spaces within continental-scale metallogenic belts.

Key words: petrophysicochemistry, petrotectonic assemblage, tectono-petrology, petrological probe, the crust-mantle structure and deep processes, lithosphere thinning, continental roots-plume tectonics, the catastrophe of the lithosphere-asthenosphere system, the “explosion” of mineralization, the three-dimensional discontinuous reactivation of the lithosphere scale