Lianxing Wen
Lianxing Wen (Chinese: 温联星) (born April 1968, Shanghang, Fujian) is a Chinese seismologist, geodynamicist and planetary scientist, who has made fundamental contributions to many discoveries in the Earth's interior. His ability to formulate new theoretical methods and apply to new seismological observations have led to some of the most fundamental and exciting discoveries in seismology in recent years. His work has fundamentally changed our understanding of the structure and dynamical processes of the Earth's mantle, outer core and inner core, and the boundaries between them. In 2010, he and Hui Long pinpointed the location of North Korea's 2009 nuclear test with a precision of 140 meters. He is Professor of Geophysics at the Department of Geosciences, State University of New York at Stony Brook.
He was born in China and attended University of Science and Technology of China, where he earned his bachelor's degree in Geophysics in 1988 and Caltech where he earned his Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Geophysics in 1998.
He is a recipient of the James B. Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and a fellow of the Union, a designation conferred upon not more than 0.1% of all AGU members in any given year.
Important publications
- Wen, L. and Long, H., High-precision location of North Korea's 2009 nuclear test, Seism. Res. Lett., 81 (1), 26-29, 2010.
- Wen, L., Localized temporal change of the Earth's inner core boundary, Science, 314. no. 5801, pp. 967 – 970, doi:10.1126/science.1131692, 2006.
- Niu, F. and Wen, L., Hemispherical variations in seismic velocity at the top of the Earth's inner-core, Nature, 410, 1081–1084, 2001.
- Wen, L., Silver, P., James, D. and Kuehnel, R., Seismic evidence for a thermo-chemical boundary layer at the base of the Earth's mantle, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 189, 141-153, 2001.
- Wen, L. and Helmberger, D.V., Ultra-low velocity zones near the core-mantle boundary from broadband PKP precursors, Science, 279, 1701–1703, 1998.
- Helmberger, D.V., Wen, L. and Ding, X., Seismic evidence that the source of the Iceland hotspot lies at the core-mantle boundary, Nature, 396, 251-255, 1998.