Professor Xie Jiarong(1896—1966)

a famous geologist of China

was graduated from the Geological Institute

Ministry of Agriculture and Trade in 1916

then 1920—1922 studied in the Wisconsin University

USA

and 1929—1930 worked on coal petrology in Germany.He was the head of the Qingyuan Fuel Division

National Geological Survey

and the director of the Peiping Geological Survey.He was promoted professor and the geological department head of Peijing University

assigned to a post of chief of the Mineral Explor-ation Division and also was appointed chief geologist of the Ministry of Geo-logy.He was elected president of the 10th council of the Geological Society of China

editor in chief for GEOLOGICAL REVIEW and a member of the Earth Science Division

Academia Sinica.He made a great contribution to energy geology.Prof.Xie was a pioneer of petroleum geology in China.Since 1921 he had made an extensive geological investigation on petroleum in Gansu

Shanxi

Guangxi

Sichuan and Hebei and published 27 papers on petroleum geology and a volume of PAPERS ON PETROLEUM GEOLOGY(1957).He expounded his views on the characteristics of petroleum geology of China and made important proposals for petroleum prospecting and prospective evaluation

He was one of the leading members for the first national mineral prospecting campaign in the fifties and made a great contribution to the discovery of the Daqing and North China oilfields.Prof.Xie was also a pioneer of coal geology and a founder of coal petrology in China.From his 44 related contributions

12 dealt with coal petrology.He was engaged in coal petrology in early years and discovered a new kind of coal in China.The discovery of Bagongshan coal mine in Huainan

Anhui Province

was an outstanding contribution to coal geology.