About Geotectonica et Metallogenia

Geotectonica et Metallogenia

Geotectonica et Metallogenia is a Chinese-language journal of tectonics and ore-deposit geology, known in Chinese as Dadi Gouzao yu Chengkuangxue, published by Science Press and associated with the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Guangzhou, Guangdong. It carries print ISSN 1001-1552, electronic ISSN 2095-9508 and Chinese catalogue number CN 44-1595/P, the Guangdong prefix confirming its Guangzhou registration. The journal publishes research on tectonics, structural geology and metallogeny in China and neighbouring regions, with articles documented from at least 2003 onward and Scopus coverage recorded for 2013 to 2025. SCImago records about 100 documents published in the journal in 2025. Its Latin title, in the tradition of older European-style geological journal names, signals its dual subject: geotectonica, the architecture and evolution of the Earth's crust, and metallogenia, the study of how and where ore deposits form. It is distinct from the already-covered journals Mineral Deposits and Geological Review, which address overlapping but different parts of Chinese geology.

Identity and institutional home

The journal's association with the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry places it inside one of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' leading Earth-science institutes. The Guangzhou institute is known for research in geochemistry, isotope geology and ore deposits, and a journal devoted to tectonics and metallogeny fits its profile, because understanding ore formation in South China, the institute's home region, requires combining geochemical data with tectonic history. Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, is also the centre of the Pearl River region, close to the South China block whose granite-related tungsten, tin and rare-metal deposits are classic subjects of metallogenic research. Publication by Science Press, the Chinese Academy of Sciences' publishing house, is consistent with academy sponsorship. The journal's Chinese title names its two fields directly: dadi gouzao is geotectonics, the large-scale structure of the Earth, and chengkuangxue is metallogeny, literally the science of ore formation. Retaining a Latin title alongside the Chinese one gives the journal a distinctive identity in international databases, where it is cited by the Latin name.

Tectonics coverage

The tectonics half of the journal's scope covers the structure and evolution of the lithosphere, with emphasis on China and neighbouring regions. China is an unusually instructive tectonic laboratory because its territory is a mosaic of ancient blocks, including the North China craton, the Yangtze block and the Tarim block, stitched together by orogenic belts such as the Qinling, Qilian and Kunlun ranges and overprinted by the collision of India with Asia and by subduction along the Pacific margin. Papers in a journal of this scope address fold-and-thrust belts, strike-slip systems, extensional basins, metamorphic complexes and the dating of deformation events. Regional metallogeny discussions in the wider Chinese literature, of the kind this journal publishes, classify China's metallogenic domains using tectonic units as their basis, distinguishing, for example, the ancient Asia, circum-Pacific and Tethys-Himalaya metallogenic domains, because geotectonic movements control sedimentation, magmatism, geothermal patterns, fluid flow and metamorphism, and through them the distribution of ore deposits. Structural geology papers provide the field and analytical evidence, from fault kinematics to thermochronology, on which those large syntheses depend.

Metallogeny coverage

The metallogeny half of the scope concerns the origin, distribution and prediction of ore deposits. Metallogeny asks when deposits formed, why they formed where they did, and what their spatial and temporal patterns imply for finding more. The journal publishes work on deposit geology, mineralisation-related petrology and geochemistry, geochronology of mineralisation and metallogenic regularity, the recurring associations between deposit types, tectonic settings and geological time. Chinese examples that recur in this literature include the granite-related deposits of South China, the gold deposits of the Jiaodong Peninsula, where the Dayingezhuang supergiant gold deposit alone holds about 180 tonnes of gold, and polymetallic systems such as the Dachang tin-polymetallic deposit in Guangxi, interpreted as a superposition of Devonian submarine hydrothermal-sedimentary and Yanshanian magmatic-hydrothermal systems. The journal also carries quantitative prediction research: three-dimensional metallogenic prediction using algorithms such as random forest classification has been published in its pages, for example for the deep levels of the Dayingezhuang gold deposit in a 2020 paper, showing how the journal's traditional subject now extends into data-driven exploration methods.

China's metallogenic framework

To read the journal profitably, a reader needs the framework of Chinese regional metallogeny that its papers assume. Chinese geologists divide the country into metallogenic domains, provinces and belts whose boundaries follow tectonic units. Schemes discussed in the literature distinguish the North China, Qinling-Qilian-Kunlun, southwest China and southeast coastal tectonic domains, or alternatively the ancient Asia, circum-Pacific and Tethys-Himalaya metallogenic domains, with the circum-Pacific domain subdivided into provinces covering northeast China, North China and South China. Each domain carries a characteristic deposit inventory formed during specific episodes of magmatism and deformation, such as the Yanshanian events of the Mesozoic that generated much of eastern China's metal endowment. Research published in journals of this field tests and refines those schemes with new deposit data, isotope ages and structural studies. The stakes are practical as well as academic: statistical studies of Chinese deposit discovery show that the great majority of medium and larger metallic deposits found between 1901 and 2007 lie southeast of the Heihe-Tengchong line, and quantitative assessments estimate substantial undiscovered deposits in less-explored northwestern regions, so metallogenic synthesis directly informs national exploration strategy.

Publication record and indexing

Articles in the journal are documented from at least 2003 onward, and Scopus coverage is recorded for 2013 to 2025, giving the journal more than a decade of continuous presence in the international abstracting system. SCImago's record of about 100 documents in 2025 indicates a substantial annual output for a specialist title, consistent with a journal serving a large national research community in tectonics and ore deposits. In citation practice, the journal is cited by its Latin title, as seen in reference lists of English-language reviews of Chinese ore deposits, where papers are noted as published in Geotectonica et Metallogenia in Chinese with English abstracts. That citation pattern is typical of established Chinese journals: the science is addressed primarily to domestic readers, while English titles and abstracts, together with Scopus indexing, make the work findable and citable internationally. The journal's identifiers, print ISSN 1001-1552, e-ISSN 2095-9508 and CN 44-1595/P, together with its Science Press publication and Guangzhou base, fix its identity in catalogues and distinguish it from other Chinese tectonics and deposit titles.

Methods and article types

The methods characteristic of the journal's papers reflect the toolkit of modern tectonics and ore-deposit research. Geochronology is central, because metallogenic synthesis depends on knowing the ages of rocks, deformation and mineralisation; isotope dating of minerals and ores recurs throughout the field's literature. Structural analysis, from field mapping of faults and folds to microstructural studies, supplies the tectonic evidence. Geochemistry, including isotope geochemistry of lead, sulfur and other systems, is used to trace the sources of ore fluids and metals, a strength aligned with the sponsoring institute's expertise. Increasingly, the journal's field also includes quantitative and computational work: mineral-potential mapping on geographic information system platforms, statistical prediction models and three-dimensional modelling of deposit geometry at depth. Review and synthesis papers, which assemble regional metallogenic frameworks from many individual deposit studies, are a recognised article type in this literature and are among its most cited products, because exploration geologists use them to transfer lessons from known districts to new ground.

Readership and use

The journal's readers are tectonic geologists, structural geologists, ore-deposit geologists and exploration professionals, together with graduate students in those fields. Its practical audience includes the geological survey and exploration organisations that plan mineral work in China, for whom metallogenic regularity studies and prediction papers are working documents. Its academic audience uses its regional syntheses and deposit case studies in research and teaching. Because the journal is published in Chinese, its deepest use is within China's large geoscience community, but Scopus indexing and English abstracts give its contents an international reach, and English-language reviews of Chinese metallogeny regularly cite its papers, as the reference lists of recent reviews demonstrate. For a directory of Chinese periodicals, the journal is an important record because it documents, in one title, the meeting point of two disciplines: the tectonic analysis that explains China's crustal architecture and the metallogenic analysis that explains where that architecture concentrated metals into deposits.

Distinguishing similar titles

Several Chinese journals publish on ore deposits, and the directory has covered some of them separately, including Mineral Deposits and Geological Review. Geotectonica et Metallogenia is distinguished by its explicit pairing of tectonics with metallogeny, by its Guangzhou base with the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, by its publication through Science Press, and by its identifiers: ISSN 1001-1552 in print, e-ISSN 2095-9508 and CN 44-1595/P. Its Chinese title, Dadi Gouzao yu Chengkuangxue, is another reliable check, since citations give the title in that form or in the Latin form used here. Readers encountering the abbreviated citation forms in reference lists should match them against these identifiers rather than against the title alone, because translated and transliterated titles of Chinese geology journals can converge. The journal's Scopus coverage from 2013 and its roughly 100 documents in 2025 further confirm that records under this name refer to an active, substantial periodical.

Place in the directory

In the WorldNM directory, Geotectonica et Metallogenia is classified in the magazines category, the directory's grouping for periodicals, and is located in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. The verified core of its profile is compact: a Chinese-language journal of tectonics, structural geology and metallogeny in China and neighbouring regions, associated with the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published by Science Press, documented from at least 2003, covered by Scopus from 2013 to 2025, and publishing about 100 documents in 2025. Around that core, the documented practices of its field, from metallogenic domain classification to three-dimensional prediction at gold deposits such as Dayingezhuang, explain what its pages contain and why exploration and academic geologists read it. It is recorded here on that basis, as South China's academy journal for the tectonics of ore formation.