A student of Graduate School of International Resource Sciences received Outstanding Student Presentation Award

Between September 14th and 16th, 2025, the 132nd Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of Japan was held at Kumamoto University, and NAKANO Ryu (Mineral Resources and Tectonics Laboratory), a second-year master’s student in the Department of Earth Resource Science at Graduate School of International Resource Sciences, Akita University, received the Geological Society of Japan Outstanding Student Presentation Award.
He gave a poster presentation titled “Constraining growth history of the Tsunatori Unit in the Nedamo Belt and Early Paleozoic tectonics through integrated geochronological and geochemical detrital zircon analyses”.
Mr. NAKANO conducted radiometric dating of zircon—a radioactive mineral—collected from strata distributed in Morioka City, Iwate Prefecture, and revealed that the geological zone consists of strata formed approximately 400 to 480 million years ago, which is about 50 to 100 million years older than previously estimated.
Furthermore, isotopic analyses of these zircons suggested that primitive Japan 400-500 million years ago may have developed along the margin of continental blocks in the current Russian Far East and Inner Mongolia, China.
This research will significantly contribute to the understanding of the geotectonic evolution of the Japanese Islands, and further development in his research is highly anticipated.