On May 20, 2015, a delegation headed by Dr. Zhong Ziran, Vice Minister for Geological Survey, Ministry of Land and Resources of China and President of the China Geological Survey (CGS), visited the Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences and was briefed on the progress made by the CGS-funded “The Pilot Project on the 3D Geological Survey” undertaken by the Institute of Geology.

Prof. Lu Minjie, the Project Leader and Deputy Director of the Institute of Geology, introduced that since its implementation in 2012, the Project has established an overall workflow of the national 3D geological survey, initially formed a system of methods and technologies for 3D geological survey and a combination of methods and technologies applied to different areas and geological problems, compiled a series of technical guidelines for 3D geological surveys in the deep crustal structure detection, metallogenic belt, ore-concentrated area, economic zone and urban agglomeration, and trained a group of talents from different academic backgrounds.

For the next stage of research work, the two priorities of the Project are to carry out 3D research on regional geological survey data and to build the framework of national 3D data. The future work will be mainly conducted in six key areas, including eastern China with a relatively high level of geological work, regions liable to major geo-hazards, important oil bearing basins, important metallogenic regions and integrated exploration areas, important economic areas, and the Silk Road Economic Belt.

The work in the six key areas aims at deepening the knowledge of deep geological structure; providing a large amount of deep geological information for energy and resources exploration, ecological civilization construction as well as prevention, control and early-warning of disasters; and better supporting deep prospecting and construction of economic zones.