China Vitae

Biography

Sun Dianqing, male, Han nationality, is a native of Harbin, Heilongjiang Province. He graduated from the Geology Department of Peking University Science Institute in 1935. Sun holds the title of senior academician.

At the beginning of his career, Sun surveyed and mapped geologic drawings of Guangxi Province with Li Siguang and studied glacial geology and geological mechanics of the Quaternary period. In 1956, he discovered large oil seepage in the Shuiyaziduan reverse S structural belt of the Caidam Basin. He then published a paper discussing China's petroleum reconnaissance and exploration foreground from the opinion of structural system.

He also assisted Li Siguang to define the existence of the Quaternary glacial period in China, exploited the geologic research of glaciers during the Quaternary period in China. Sun advanced the idea that the glacial period of the Quaternary period may be divided into five sub-glacial periods, one cold period and four to five interglacial periods.

Sun was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980.