About Geology in China

Geology in China

Overview and identity

Geology in China is a Chinese geoscience journal based in Beijing, established in 1953 and published bimonthly. It is listed among the journals of the China Geological Survey and is published by Science Press. The China Geological Survey describes it as an applied-academic journal devoted to reflecting state-level high-level research, with a focus on the results of comprehensive, guiding, large-scale geological surveys and state-level key scientific and technological projects, and as one of the few geoscience journals with a long history and long-standing reputation in China. Its official English site is hosted by the China Geological Survey at geochina.cgs.gov.cn. This profile records those verified facts and explains the journal's role, distinguishing it carefully from China Geology, a different and much newer journal with which it is sometimes confused.

The distinction is essential. China Geology was established only in 2018, is published quarterly in English, and is co-sponsored by the China Geological Survey and the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences. Geology in China, by contrast, dates to 1953, appears bimonthly, and carries the survey results of seven decades. The two titles share a sponsoring survey and a subject, but they are separate journals with separate histories, frequencies and readerships, and citations should never be transferred between them.

History and development

Established in 1953, Geology in China is among the longest-running geoscience journals in China. Its lifetime covers the entire modern history of organised geological survey in the country: the decades of systematic regional mapping and mineral exploration after 1949, the later expansion into hydrogeology and engineering geology as construction accelerated, and the more recent turn toward environmental geology, geological hazards and the monitoring of environmental change. Because the journal's core mission has always been to publish the results of state-level surveys and key projects, its back volumes form a primary published record of what China's geological surveys found, decade by decade.

The journal has continued to publish across the whole field of geology in recent years, in the China Geological Survey's own assessment, and its editorial news records continued national recognition, including its selection as one of the 6th China's Key Sci-Tech Journals, announced in December 2023, following a similar selection as the 5th China's Key Sci-Tech Journals announced in January 2021. Its site also maintains the apparatus of an active journal of record — online-first articles in press that are citable by DOI before assignment to a volume and issue, current issue and archive listings, and lists of top viewed, downloaded and cited papers.

Sponsorship, publisher and editorial home

Geology in China is one of the journals presented on the China Geological Survey's journals platform, and it is published by Science Press in Beijing. Its main authors are from the China Geological Survey, described by the Survey as the largest geological survey agency in China, with more than 500 employees holding doctoral degrees. The Survey itself is a government-owned organisation researching China's mineral resources under the State Council; reinstated in 1999, it is the largest geoscience agency in China and is headquartered in Beijing, with responsibilities spanning resource exploration, environmental protection, geological hazard prevention and disaster reduction across China's land, sea and polar regions.

This institutional setting explains the journal's character. The China Geological Survey states that the state invests heavily each year in major geological projects, producing several hundred papers annually, and that the journal gives priority to publishing content that other publications do not have, drawn directly from current geological work and scientific research, with strong timeliness. Many of its papers are linked to the geo-data holdings associated with the Survey's mapping — the Survey notes connections to products such as the 1:200,000 Geological Map of China and the Hydrogeological Map of China — realising, in its phrase, the journal and the database as a family. Readers therefore encounter Geology in China not as a detached academic periodical but as the publishing arm of a working national survey.

Scope: regional geology and geological surveys

The journal's first subject territory is regional geology and the results of large-scale geological surveys. For years it has published papers on regional geology, and its survey focus means that synthesis papers — accounts of the geology of a belt, basin or region assembled from systematic mapping — are a characteristic form. Current and recent articles in press illustrate the breadth: lithofacies palaeogeography of Neoproterozoic formations in the Yangtze region, the development of palaeo-uplifts in the Junggar Basin and their control on sedimentary systems, chronostratigraphy of formations in Guizhou, and isotopic studies of deep-sea ferromanganese nodules. These are the building blocks from which national geological knowledge is assembled, and publishing them in a survey journal places them where exploration, mapping and research communities can use them together.

Scope: mineral and energy resources

A second territory is mineral and energy resources: metal and non-metal minerals, and oil and gas. The Survey's description lists metal and non-metal and oil and gas among the subjects the journal has published for years, and its recent contents confirm the continuing weight of resource geology — reports of a large quartz vein-type tungsten deposit in the West Qinling orogenic belt, the characteristics and potential of vanadium resources in China, pyrophyllite and high-purity quartz deposit studies, potash mineralisation indicators in the Yarkand Basin, shale gas prospectivity in Cambrian formations, and assessments of the coexistence of multiple energy resources in the Ordos Basin. Global mining coverage also appears, including reviews of global mineral exploration developments and of mineral resources and exploration trends in southern Africa, reflecting the journal's Global Mining Trends service for its readers.

For an applied-academic journal attached to a survey, this resource strand is the core of its usefulness: discoveries, assessments and prospecting implications reported here feed directly into exploration decisions, and the journal's priority for survey-derived content means much of it is published nowhere else first.

Scope: hydrogeology, engineering and environmental geology

The journal's third territory covers water, engineering and environment. The Survey's account lists water resources exploration, engineering stability evaluation and environmental change monitoring among its long-standing subjects. Recent contents show how that translates in practice: recharge sources and development potential of karst groundwater on the Qinghai–Xizang Plateau, water quality studies of springs and reservoirs, geothermal resource assessments in the Lanzhou and Zhangye–Minle basins, landslide and debris-flow susceptibility research including twenty years of landslide work in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, heavy metal distributions in soils and groundwater around mines, and ecological vulnerability assessment in the Yellow River Basin. Hydrogeology, engineering geology and environmental geology are treated as parts of one applied geoscience, serving water supply, safe construction, hazard prevention and environmental protection.

This breadth is deliberate. A national survey is responsible simultaneously for resources, water, hazards and environment, and its journal mirrors that responsibility, so that a reader following Chinese applied geoscience can find survey-grade work on all of them in a single bimonthly title.

Readership, indexing and access

Geology in China is included in 17 databases, among them Scopus, GeoBase, Chemical Abstracts (CA), CSA, GeoRef (GR), the Abstract Journal (AJ), Zoological Record (ZR) and CNKI, according to the China Geological Survey. Inclusion in Scopus and the geoscience-specific services GeoBase and GeoRef places its survey results within the international retrieval systems that geologists actually search, while CNKI provides full-text access for its domestic readership. Its articles carry DOIs under the prefix 10.12029/gc, and articles in press are posted online first, peer-reviewed and accepted, citable by DOI before they are assigned to a volume and issue — volume 53 was appearing in 2026, consistent with a run beginning in 1953.

Its readership is therefore double: the professional staff of the geological survey system and the mining, water and engineering industries who use survey results operationally, and academic geologists in China and abroad who cite its regional and resource syntheses. For both, the journal's value lies in the provenance of its content — state-level survey and project work, reported by the organisation that carried it out.

Place in Chinese scholarly publishing

Within Chinese scholarly publishing, Geology in China occupies the survey-journal niche: older than most Chinese geoscience titles, attached to the country's largest geoscience agency, published by Science Press, and defined by an applied-academic mission that most university journals do not share. Its verified record — established 1953, bimonthly, devoted to state-level survey and key project results across regional geology, mineral and energy resources, hydrogeology, engineering and environmental geology, indexed in 17 databases and repeatedly selected among China's key science and technology journals — makes it a journal of record for Chinese geology, and one whose archive is inseparable from the history of the geological survey itself.