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Quantitative simulation and prediction of extreme geological events

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Abstract

The systematic study of extreme geological events (such as plate collision and subduction, extreme cold and extreme hot events, biological extinction and revival, earthquakes, volcanoes, mineralization, and oil accumulation) that occurred during the evolution of the earth is essential not only for understanding the “abrupt changes in the evolution of the earth”, but also for an in-depth understanding of the co-evolution of material-life-environment of the livable earth. However, due to the temporal and spatial anomalies and complexity of extreme geological events, classical mathematical models cannot be effectively applied to quantitively describe such events. After comparative studies of many types of geological events, the author found that such extreme geological events often depict “singular” characteristics (abnormal accumulation or depletion of matter or massive release or absorption of energy in a small space or time interval). On this basis, the author proposes a unified definition of extreme geological events, a new concept of “fractal density” and a “local singularity analysis” method for quantitative description and modeling of extreme geological events. Applications of these methods to several types of extreme geological events have demonstrated that the singularity theory and methods developed in the current research can be used as general approaches for the characterization, simulation, and prediction of geological events.

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Acknowledgements

Part of the content of this article was exchanged at the academic seminar of the Academician Conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in May of 2021. The author has exchanged and discussed the academic views and thoughts in the article with many academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences such as Pengda ZHAO, Hongfu YIN, Zhenmin JIN, Xuanxue MO, Shuguang LI, Zhisheng AN, Wencai YANG, Zhijun JIN, Chengshan WANG, Zengqian HOU. Thanks are due to the above academicians for their constructive comments and suggestions which have helped to improve the formation and discussion of the singularity theory and the expansion of practical applications. Several graduate students, Shubin ZHOU, Molei ZHAO, Zhengjie ZHANG, Jie YANG and Pinpin ZHU are thanked for their assistances on preparations of some of the figures and the earlier draft of the manuscripts. Finally, the author thanks the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42050103), the Ministry of Science and Technology (Grant No. 2016YFC0600500), and the Ministry of Natural Resources and the China Geological Survey (Grant No. DD20160045).

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  1. School of Earth Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai, 915000, China

    Qiuming Cheng

  2. State Key Lab of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, 100083, China

    Qiuming Cheng

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Cheng, Q. Quantitative simulation and prediction of extreme geological events. Sci. China Earth Sci. 65, 1012–1029 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-021-9881-2

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