Yin Hongfu: "Original innovation requires the courage to deny what you think is wrong. Even if you are alone at the forefront of the battle, the determination to pursue the truth belongs to the development of innovation and requires our efforts."
【Character business card】
Yin Hongfu, born in March 1935, is 91 years old this year. Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, professor of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), stratigraphic paleontologist and geologist. He promoted the comprehensive integration of paleontology and geology and established the geobiology discipline system in my country. He proposed a new definition of the international Permian-Triassic boundary, led the team to establish the Changxing Meishan in Zhejiang Province as the global Permian-Triassic boundary stratotype, and "nailed" one of the three most important "golden nails" in global geological history to China, and won the "Lifetime Achievement Honor" from the Chinese Paleontological Society.
Dreams sprout from the map of Youtiao Shop
Yin Hongfu spent more than two-thirds of his life traveling among high mountains and deserts. This geologist who has traveled all over the country has always treasured an atlas he "begged" from a fried dough stick shop. That was when he was a boy. When buying breakfast at the entrance of the alley, the vendor tore off paper from an old atlas to wrap the fried dough sticks, which made his eyes light up. "When I saw it, this was the geography that the teacher had taught me, so I told him, if you use this as waste paper, why not give it to me! I feel like I have found a treasure."
The map book with missing pages became a treasure in the hands of young Yin Hongfu. One of the mineral distribution maps echoed what the teacher said in geography class - there are no mines in western China. "At that time, I thought, I want to go to the northwest to see what the situation is like in the northwest. It's impossible. How come there are no mines in half of China?" On the atlas, the blank areas of Tibet, Xinjiang, Gansu, and Qinghai aroused his desire.
The youthful spirit resonates with the call of the country. At that time, New China was in urgent need of geological talents who would devote themselves to mineral exploration. In the college entrance examination in 1952, among the key high schools in Shanghai, "Tsinghua Jiaotong University, Electrical Machinery" was the most popular destination. There was only one person in the school, Yin Hongfu, who filled out "Geology" in all three choices.
Prospecting for the motherland
After being admitted to the newly established Beijing Institute of Geology with a score that exceeded the admission score of Tsinghua University, Yin Hongfu wrote an article in response to an invitation from a newspaper: "Choosing the Right Choice Helps Me Study Well" - "I feel happy and proud to serve the motherland as a geologist throughout my life." This is how the 18-year-old boy set his lifelong goal.
In 1955, with the broadcast of the documentary "Treasure Exploration in the Mountains", Yin Hongfu was excited by the news that the "Jingtie Mountain" iron mine was discovered in Qilian Mountain. In the second year, when he was a senior in college, he received the task of "looking for minerals for the motherland" for the first time: to find coal fuel for ironmaking in the "Jingtieshan" iron mine.
Putting down their ongoing graduation thesis, Yin Hongfu and his classmates were temporarily transferred to the Northwest Geological Bureau and went to the "Gongpo Spring" at the junction of Xinjiang, Gansu and Mongolia. But "Granny Spring" does not have a spring, it is an inaccessible Gobi Desert. "There are cow bones, sheep bones, and wolf bones all around. Water is the first priority. I can't bear it until I can't walk, so I take a sip." They measured the desert inch by inch and expanded the search area little by little. Domestic water was delivered regularly by the camel team. Every mouthful had to be held in the mouth until it turned into foam before swallowing.
Engagement reveals the "suffering" in the wild and reveals its truest form. But it was during these most difficult years that more and more minerals were discovered in the northwest of the motherland! "The common people welcomed our geological team. The conditions in that place were so difficult that they later opened a mine!" This is the "sweetness" that makes Yin Hongfu most satisfied.
Even if no one cares about it, we still have to work hard
After graduating from university, Yin Hongfu continued his master's degree with Mr. Yang Zunyi, a famous stratigraphic paleontologist, and clarified the research direction of geological paleontology, and then stayed at the school to teach. During the gloomy ten years, teaching and scientific research were largely suspended, and most of his colleagues returned to their hometowns. However, in order to be able to go to the geological library to check information and conduct research at any time, Yin Hongfu decided to stay.
During those years, Yin Hongfu and his wife lived separately in two places with a child. Materials could not be borrowed, so he used his monthly salary of 40 yuan carefully to buy nearly 100 rolls of imported film with a unit price of 1.5 yuan. He spent the day in the library shooting materials and went back to organize research at night. Almost all academic journals have ceased publication, and even though he knew that none of the papers he wrote could be published, he continued to write.
"I feel that what I wrote must be useful. I am not afraid of traveling all over the world. It relies on strength and ability. I firmly believe in this. Turmoil has an end. The country must be built. For construction, minerals, oil, and iron must be the first step. Later it proved that this is indeed the case!"
The spring of science has indeed come. In 1980, with his solid academic accumulation and fluent foreign language, Yin Hongfu became the first batch of Chinese scholars to study in the United States. Before returning to China, a large oil company offered him an olive branch, offering him a salary thousands of times higher than at home. His American colleagues advised him that China was not suitable for scientific research, and that if he returned to China he could only be a "Sisyphus" pushing rocks up mountains repeatedly for the rest of his life.
"I say that someone has to recommend it. If you don't recommend it and everyone doesn't recommend it, then who will do it?" What Yin Hongfu is thinking about is bringing the latest knowledge and ideas back to China as soon as possible. When he returned to China, someone brought advanced home appliances. In Yin Hongfu's suitcase, there were books besides books. But Yin Hongfu doesn't just want to be "Sisyphus" pushing rocks. Shortly after returning to China, he wrote an article titled "Where is paleontology going?" "I said, we have to take another path." He began to explore a new direction for China's geological paleontology.
"Nail" the "golden nails" for the mountains and rivers of the motherland
Yin Hongfu, who pioneered a new path, first came up with new ideas in the study of the Permian-Triassic boundary.
If we compare the history of the earth to a thick book, the last chapter of the Paleozoic Era is called the Permian, and the first chapter of the Mesozoic Era is called the Triassic. The Permian-Triassic boundary is the page between these two chapters. This geological dividing line more than 250 million years ago recorded the most tragic mass extinction of life on earth. On the geological dividing line, finding the cross-section points with globally recognized iconic fossils, commonly known as the "golden nails" by geologists, is the focus of competition among scholars from various countries. Whether there are "golden nails" within the territory is also one of the important criteria for measuring the level of geoscience research in a country.
Beginning in the late 1970s, following the research of his teacher Yang Zunyi, Yin Hongfu and his team members investigated the Permian-Triassic boundary section across the country. At that time, it was internationally recognized that the appearance of "Wu's ototrilite" marked the beginning of the Triassic. However, Yin Hongfu discovered that "Wu's otozolite" is not common in sections in China.
"We searched for 35 sections across the country and found not one 'Wu's otozoonite', but 'conodonts' were found in 22 of them. Looking at the map, we can see that it is actually distributed all over the world." Therefore, Yin Hongfu boldly proposed that the "tiny Hinde conodont" is more suitable as a symbol of the beginning of the Triassic.
In 1986, at the International Permian-Triassic Boundary Working Conference held in Italy, facing the authority of experts from various countries, Yin Hongfu stood on the podium with new views. "I am a 'little carrot head' associate professor, and the topic I lecture on is 'deviant'. When foreigners say 'thank you for your good timing', it is just a polite word, which means that you have a good grasp of the time of the report, and that is all." Faced with this seemingly insignificant speech, some people did not take it seriously.
But solid evidence is most convincing. Yin Hongfu's voice still made some international colleagues start to pay attention to the "tiny Hinde conodont". A few years later, more and more scholars discovered the existence of conodonts in different areas, and gradually turned to support Yin Hongfu's new standard. In the following nearly ten years, Yin Hongfu led his team to conduct arduous explorations and identified Meishan, Changxing, Zhejiang, as the candidate section for the preferred boundary stratotype. In order to gain more support, he traveled around and actively promoted the opening of the Changxing region to scientists from all over the world.
In 2001, the International Union of Geological Sciences finally officially confirmed that the Changxing Meishan in Zhejiang, China, was the global Permian-Triassic boundary stratotype section and point. This means that one of the three most important "golden nails" in global geological history has been "nailed" in China. "The 'Golden Nail' has a lot of meanings. I thought to myself that I have finally done something for the country, and I have mixed feelings."
What makes Yin Hongfu equally pleased with the settlement of the "Golden Nail" is that Changxing, which has opened its doors to the world, has been ranked among the "Top 100 Counties in the Country" since its opening.
"Asking to fight day and night"
While running for the "Golden Nail", Yin Hongfu suffered a comminuted fracture during a field trip and lost one-fifth of his left knee. Many people thought that his field career would end here, but more than two years later, when he heard that new geological survey maps were needed for the development of the western region, he climbed to the Kunlun Mountains again.
Until he was in his 80s, Yin Hongfu still took his students out into the wild. "Teacher Yin is very strong in the wild. Every time we want to help him, he insists on walking and crawling by himself. When encountering various geological phenomena, he can tell many details and many stories behind them." Song Haijun, a professor at the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), expressed his appreciation for the teacher's words and deeds.
The farther he walks, the farther Yin Hongfu sees. After returning from his study tour in the United States, he keenly proposed that research should be conducted by linking traditional paleontology with the earth's historical environment. On this basis, Yin Hongfu continues to promote the cross-integration of earth sciences and life sciences and develop emerging geobiology. "Our science in the 21st century must expand outward. Paleontology must be integrated with the six major circles of the earth, with the planets, and with the universe. This has always been my opinion." Today, in the field of geobiology, China has become one of the global leaders.
This broad academic vision still guides the exploration direction of Song Haijun and more descendants today. A few years ago, Yin Hongfu suggested that Song Haijun and his team members build a marine ecological simulation laboratory. "This is very rare in the world. In fact, this is generally not done by people who do paleontology or geology, but by people who do modern marine biology. But studying the relationship between fossils, ancient marine organisms and environmental changes does require exploring the relationship between modern marine organisms and modern marine environmental changes." Song Haijun said that the teacher's guidance has benefited the team a lot.
More than 70 years later, the young man who embarked on the "geological road" because of a blank spot on the map has opened up new worlds in more blank spaces in the academic world. For many years after reaching the age of 60, Yin Hongfu still insisted on speaking on the podium to teach "General Geology" to freshmen.
In the discussion class, he encouraged students to boldly question the laws and opinions taught. "You can express any opinion. It doesn't matter if you make a mistake. I want to let students understand first that laws and truth are two different things. Some laws are truth and some are not." Yin Hongfu hopes to sow the spirit of daring to challenge and scientific criticism into the hearts of more students.
Now, when he sings the "Song of Exploration Team Members" that has been woven into the blood of generations of geologists, Yin Hongfu's smile is still filled with youthful vigor. At this young age, he still pretends to be unable to stop. With sonorous steps, the road of transcendence that "fights day and night" will never end.
"For new things and things that surpass the ancients, we must be eager to catch up and do better than them. From catching up to surpassing them, this is called 'fighting day and night'."
[Reporter’s Notes]
I am reporter Zhao Chunan. During the interview, when I mentioned the fall that almost ended Mr. Yin’s outdoor career, I thought he would talk about the difficulty of the recovery process and the hardships of his comeback. But I didn’t expect that all the pain would be downplayed. On the contrary, when he talked about how after recovering from his injury, he climbed to a snowy plateau of more than 5,000 meters and slept in the wild, Mr. Yin's voice suddenly rose several decibels, and his red face was full of pride.
During his more than 70 years of scientific research career, no matter what circumstances he was in, Mr. Yin’s heart always stood on a higher mountaintop, filled with the vastness of the earth. His gaze penetrates the earth's trillion-year past, touches the depths of the universe, and connects to the vast future.
Producer丨Shen Yong Liu Qin
Planning丨Fan Xinzheng Xiao Yuan Chen Yi Wang Xian
Editor丨Wang Xian
Reporters丨Zhao Chunan Feng Cheng
Broadcast丨Wang Xian Tang Ziwen
Audio production丨Li Chenyu
New Media丨Zhang Zongpeng
Coordinator｜Li Hang
Video Director丨Liu Yi
Photography｜Yang Yongqi
Video editing and production丨Liu Yi
Acknowledgments丨China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)
