chemistry

Weijian Zhou

Weijian Zhou is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Weijian Zhou rather than just read about it. In short: Weijian Zhou is a geologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences known for her research into environmental changes in the Quaternary era using radiocarbon data. Education and career Zhou graduated from Guizhou University in 1976.

Key takeaways

Weijian Zhou belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Weijian Zhou to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Weijian Zhou from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Weijian Zhou is a geologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences known for her research into environmental changes in the Quaternary era using radiocarbon data.

Education and career Zhou graduated from Guizhou University in 1976. She earned her Ph.D. in 1995 from North-West University in China in 1995, and her Ph.D. won the “First National Prize for the One Hundred Most Outstanding PhD Theses in China”. In 1999, she became a professor in the Institute of Earth Environment at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Xi'an, China. In 2006 she began her position as the director of the Xi'an Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Center. In 2016, she was named a fellow of the American Geophysical Union who cited her "for exceptional contributions to radiocarbon dating and our understanding of East Asian and global environmental changes using radionuclides as tracers".

Research Weijian Zhou is known for using Accelerator mass spectrometry data to track geochemical tracers such as beryllium-10 in loess and Carbon-14. Through these data streams, Zhou studies to chronostratigraphy in the Quaternary era, the period from 2.9 million years ago to the present. Her research has provided insights into the monsoons in China, and records of ancient rainfall through tracking of beryllium-10 in dust layers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Zhou's research showed carbon dioxide concentrations were lower than previous years, but this decrease was short-lived because values returned to pre-pandemic levels when lockdown restrictions were lifted.

Selected publications Zhou, Weijian; Donahue, Douglas J.; Porter, Stephen C.; Jull, Timothy A.; Xiaoqiang, Li; Stuiver, Minze; Zhisheng, An; Matsumoto, Eiji; Guangrong, Dong (November 1996). "Variability of Monsoon Climate in East Asia at the End of the Last Glaciation". Quaternary Research. 46 (3): 219–229. Bibcode:1996QuRes..46..219W. doi:10.1006/qres.1996.0062. S2CID 129650707. Zhou, Weijian; Donahue, Douglas; Jull, A. J. T. (1997). "Radiocarbon AMS Dating of Pollen Concentrated from Eolian Sediments: Implications for Monsoon Climate Change Since the Late Quaternary". Radiocarbon. 39 (1): 19–26. Bibcode:1997Radcb..39...19Z. doi:10.1017/S0033822200040868. Zheng, Yanhong; Zhou, Weijian; Meyers, Philip A.; Xie, Shucheng (November 2007). "Lipid biomarkers in the Zoigê-Hongyuan peat deposit: Indicators of Holocene climate changes in West China". Organic Geochemistry. 38 (11): 1927–1940. Bibcode:2007OrGeo..38.1927Z. doi:10.1016/j.orggeochem.2007.06.012. Zhou, Weijian; Zheng, Yanhong; Meyers, Philip A.; Jull, A.J. Timothy; Xie, Shucheng (May 2010). "Postglacial climate-change record in biomarker lipid compositions of the Hani peat sequence, Northeastern China". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 294 (1–2): 37–46. Bibcode:2010E&PSL.294...37Z. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2010.02.035. An, Zhisheng; Huang, Ru-Jin; Zhang, Renyi; Tie, Xuexi; Li, Guohui; Cao, Junji; Zhou, Weijian; Shi, Zhengguo; Han, Yongming; Gu, Zhaolin; Ji, Yuemeng (30 April 2019). "Severe haze in northern China: A synergy of anthropogenic emissions and atmospheric processes". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116 (18): 8657–8666. Bibcode:2019PNAS..116.8657A. doi:10.1073/pnas.1900125116. PMC 6500134. PMID 30988177.

Awards and honors Academician, Division of Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2009) Elected member, Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (2010) Fellow, American Geophysical Union (2016)

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Weijian Zhou

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Weijian Zhou claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Weijian Zhou before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Weijian Zhou ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Weijian Zhou

In research: Weijian Zhou appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Weijian Zhou in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Weijian Zhou is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th-century Chinese chemists, 21st-century Chinese chemists, 21st-century Chinese geologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Weijian Zhou outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Weijian Zhou in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Weijian Zhou means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Weijian Zhou out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Weijian Zhou in simple terms?

Weijian Zhou is a geologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences known for her research into environmental changes in the Quaternary era using radiocarbon data. Education and career Zhou graduated from Guizhou University in 1976.

Why does Weijian Zhou matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Weijian Zhou?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Weijian Zhou.