Science | Geologists join forces to research city’s roots

Geologists from Macau, Portugal and China have launched a joint research project to learn more about the petrology and geochemistry of the city’s magmatic rocks, looking into its origins.
“What we would like to understand is how Macau emerged on this planet,” said the project coordinator Ágata Alveirinho Dias from the Institute of Science and Environment at the University of Saint Joseph.
Titled MagIC, the project was suggested by Ms Dias and will be developed in collaboration with researchers from the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Sciences and the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry. The research project will be entirely funded by the Macau Science and Technology Development Fund, with a total of MOP2.7 million.
According to Ms Dias, MagIC is designed as a three-year project focusing on three main goals. Firstly, researchers will update Macau’s geological map, which, unlike most countries, does not currently provide detailed information and is not accessible to the general public.
The most relevant and detailed work on the geological map was performed by the Portuguese Geology Services in 1992 and is only available as a hard copy in Portugal.
Therefore, researchers are planning to update the map and publish it in Portuguese and Chinese, as well as in English. An online version will also be available.
Ms Dias recalled that updating the map will help researchers, not only when launching study and research projects related to geology, but in other areas such as urban planning, environment, and civil engineering.
Samples available at the National Laboratory for Energy and Geology (LNEG) in Portugal will be used to study particular areas of Macau, which are today inaccessible due to construction works. Researchers will conduct other studies ‘in loco’ to learn more about the petrologic and geologic features of Macau. They hope to unearth the origin, and understand the development, of the magma that would later form Macau’s rocks, Ms Dias explained.
These samples will be labeled so that researchers have a clear understanding of its timeline. They will then compare it with that of neighboring regions, so that they can get a clear idea of how the tectonic-magmatic evolution of Southern China took place.
Research findings will be released and promoted within educational institutions, and communicated to the general public as well.
The research team comprises seven people, including students, and will be supported by civil construction companies, said Ms Dias.
Macau’s geological map, which dates back to 1992, indicates that granitic rocks emerged in Macau between the Middle and Later Jurassic period, which seems to have coincided with granitic rocks that were formed in other Southern China regions in that period. Unlike Macau, Hong Kong and Guangzhou have provided an increasing number of publications on their geology. MDT/Lusa