On April 22, the 5^th Congress of China Geodesy and Geophysics (CCGG) was held in Wuhan. The congress attracted more than 3,900 experts, scholars, and students from hundreds of universities and research institutions.

Tao LEI, a senior research scholar from the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), and Zhengwen YAN, a doctoral student at SUSTech, were recipients of the Outstanding Youth Paper award at the 5^th CCGG.

The title of Tao LEI’s winning paper was “Ray-based adjoint-state surface wave traveltime tomography”. In this article, he proposed a novel ray-based adjoint-state surface wave tomography technique that eliminates the need for explicit ray tracing and avoids the need to store numerous sensitive kernels in memory. The 3D gradient is constructed by back-propagating phase travel-time residuals in a 2D phase velocity map and calculating the corresponding sensitivity kernel of the phase velocity to the shear wave velocity in a local 1D velocity profile.

The effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method are validated through theoretical tests and field data from the Grane area of the North Sea. The approach provides a new method for inverting ambient noise data from dense seismic arrays and improving our understanding of near-surface structures.

Tao LEI said that participating in this congress helped him learn the differences and complementarities between disciplines and appreciate the academic style of different scholars, which created more possibilities for future research directions.

The award-winning paper by Zhengwen YAN was entitled “The Temporal Improvement of Earth’s Mass Transport Estimated by Coupling GRACE-FO with a Chinese Polar Gravity Satellite Mission”.

In this paper, he takes the Kepler orbit parameters of the GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) gravity satellite as the starting point. Then, he uses the differential evolution algorithm to search for the optimal Kepler orbit parameters of the Chinese future gravimetry mission based on the optimization criterion of uniform ground tracks of the Dual GRACE-like Polar satellite Constellation (DGPC). The temporal improvement of Earth’s mass transport estimated by coupling GRACE-FO with a Chinese polar gravity satellite mission would facilitate contributions of satellite gravimetry to geosciences.

Zhengwen YAN noted that the 5^th CCGG provided a rare learning and exchange platform for those engaged in geodesy, geophysics, and geology, which greatly enriched the research vision of participants and promoted scientific research through multidisciplinary integration.

The CCGG is hosted by the Chinese National Committee for International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (CNC-IUGG). It is held every two years, providing a platform for Chinese scientists to communicate, exchange, and cooperate with top researchers in related international fields.