With experience over 15 years in mineral systems, consulting, and management, Yongjun’s journey in geoscience has been an exhilarating adventure. Internationally recognized for his contributions to economic geology, Yongjun was honored to receive the prestigious Waldemar Lindgren Award from the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) in 2018. His career has been cultivated through extensive global collaborations, establishing robust connections with key stakeholders in government, industry, and academia. He has a strong business focus and delivery capability with a proven ability to develop projects and lead teams to achieve results.

Since June 2024, Yongjun took the role of Principal Geoscientist at RSC Global Pty Ltd, which is a global leader in geological consulting and exploration management, serving the international mining and exploration sectors. Yongjun leads RSC’s collaborative research projects with industry, government, and academia, enhancing value throughout the mining value chain. His responsibilities also include providing scientific mentorship to teams within the Department of Geoscience and Exploration, fostering innovation and excellence in the company's approaches.

During the nine transformative years (2015-2024) at the Geological Survey of Western Australia, Yongjun has had the privilege of being at the forefront of geoscience endeavors that have left an enduring impact on the industry. His work has been centered on orchestrating multi-team projects that encompass a diverse spectrum of activities, ranging from boots-on-the-ground field mapping to cutting-edge multi-disciplinary data integration and the creation of sophisticated GIS databases. His primary focus has revolved around unravelling the prospectivity of Western Australia, particularly in copper, nickel, gold and lithium. He has always taken a systems approach to economic geology, realizing that in order to understand the genesis of the deposits, one needs to understand the whole system of geologic processes that contribute across a range of scales to form mineral deposits.

Lithospheric architecture, evolution, and mineral systems of continental crust

Mineral system-based prospectivity mapping of critical metals

porphyry copper systems

• Pioneered a revolutionary exploration technique in collaboration with Rio Tinto, BHP, the University of Western Australia and Curtin University that harnesses zircon compositions as pathfinders for porphyry copper, molybdenum, and gold deposits, in both Archean and Phanerozoic terranes. This pioneering approach has been embraced by esteemed mining companies, marking a significant leap forward in our ability to predict hidden mineral systems in covered terranes.
• Spearheaded igneous fertility indicators for post-collisional porphyry copper deposits and orogenic gold deposits in collaboration with prominent geoscientists and various mining companies. These fertility indicators can be readily applied in practical exploration to help ground selection, prospectivity analysis, and evaluation of drilling/sampling results from regional to camp and prospect scales.
• Unearthed the boundaries between the West Australian Craton and the North Australia Craton and discovered a concealed 1700-kilometer-long Proterozoic lithosphere beneath surface. This revelation has opened up new space in the search for copper, nickel, gold, lead, and zinc in Western Australia with Telfer Au-Cu, and Winu Cu-Au deposits located right on top of the newly defined boundary.
• Produced the first multi-isotope maps of Western Australia, which provided valuable new tools in regional exploration targeting across various mineral systems. For example, all tier-1 copper, nickel and gold deposits in WA are spatially associated with significant isotope gradients, including the Julimar Ni-Cu-PGE deposit, and the Pilgangoora lithium mine.
• Established a groundbreaking age of c. 2670 Ma for the Julimar Ni-Cu-PGE deposit in the Yilgarn Craton discovered in 2020 by Chalice Mining Ltd, unveiling a previously unseen period of nickel mineralization in Australia.
• Identified a genetic link between lamprophyres and sanukitoids, and to more evolved felsic compositions of the Black Flag Group in the Eastern Goldfields of Archean Yilgarn Craton, providing new insights into the enormous gold endowment of the Eastern Goldfields. The proposed sanukitoid gold model has been used by De Grey Mining Ltd to discover the giant Hemi gold deposit in 2020.
• Delivered the first zircon multi-isotopic mapping in Tibet, South China and Central Asia, leading to the discovery that porphyry copper deposits cluster exclusively within the juvenile crustal domain, and establishing isotope maps as effective regional targeting tools for the porphyry copper exploration industry.