1. Personal Information
Name, Family name: Sano
Forenames : Yuji
Date/Place of birth : January 1956; Tokyo, Japan
Nationality : Japanese
Titles : Director and Professor of Geochemistry
Present Address : Marine Core Research Institute, Kochi University B200 Monobe, Nankoku, Kochi 783-8502, Japan Tel: (81) 88 864 6714 (office); Fax: (81) 88 864 6713
E-mail : yuji.sano@kochi-u.ac.jp
2. Education
1974-1978 Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo, Awarded the degree of BSc in chemistry
1978-1980 Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo, Awarded the degree of MSc in chemistry
1980-1983 Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo, Awarded the degree of PhD in geophysics
3. Research and professional experience
1982-1989 Research Associate at Laboratory for Earthquake Chemistry, University of Tokyo, Japan
1989-1990 Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Earth Sciences, The Open University, U.K.
1990-1993 Associate Professor at the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Hiroshima University, Japan
1993-2001 Professor at the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Hiroshima University, Japan
2001-2021 Professor at the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Japan
2021- Director and Professor at the Marine Core Research Institute, Kochi University, Japan
4. Award
1998 Geochemical Society of Japan Award
2005 Miyake Award, Association of Geochemistry, Japan
2006 Geochemical Journal Award
2009 Research Award of Minister of Education and Science, Japan
2012 Fellow of American Geophysical Union
2013 Shimadzu Award, Shimadzu Foundation, Japan
2014 The Seventh National Maritime Award, the Prime Minister of Japan
2016 Emeritus Professor, Hiroshima University, Japan
2016 Doctorat Honoris Causa, University of Lorraine, France
2019 Honorary Professor, Tianjin University, China
2019 Fellow of Geochemical Society and European Association of Geochemistry
2021 Emeritus Professor, University of Tokyo, Japan
2022 Fellow of Japan Geoscience Union
2023 Bowen Award and Lecture, American Geophysical Union
5. Management and society experience (2008-)
2008-2011 Editor-in-chief, Geochemical Journal
2009- Councilor of Japan Geoscience Union
2014 Visiting Research Fellow, University of Quebec at Montreal, Canada
2014 Visiting Lecturer at University of Chile
2015- Editorial Board Member, Scientific Reports, Nature Publishing Group
2015-2017 Board of Directors, Geochemical Society, USA
2015-2016 Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Geoscience, National Taiwan University
2019- Life member, Scientific Committee of International Conference on Gas Geochemistry
2019 Distinguished Scientist of the Chinese Academy of Science, PIFI
2023 Friend of Water-Rock Interaction & Applied Isotope Geochemistry
6. Research summary and accomplishment
Yuji Sano is an outstanding, world-class geochemist, who did major discoveries in several fields of Earth and Planetary Sciences like noble gas geochemistry, volcanology, earthquake mitigation,environmental geochemistry, cosmochemistry, and global environment change. His knowledge and experiences in the wide fields in geochemistry will contribute greatly to the development of the proposed project. Yuji Sano has pioneered the analysis of noble gases, with particular emphasis on the isotopes of helium, at a time when the application of these powerful geochemical tracers was still at the beginning. During his Ph.D. and later on as an assistant professor at the Laboratory for Earthquake Chemistry, the University of Tokyo, he analyzed systematically the helium isotope composition of mineral springs and geothermal/volcanic gases in Japan and abroad. Instead of just compiling the data, he managed to make several breakthroughs in volcanic and earthquake mitigation. He demonstrated that the helium isotopes permit to delineate laterally the extent of magma generation at arcs. He has also coupled mantle 3He with CO2 and nitrogen in volcanic gases to define and quantify the cycle of C and N at subduction zones, and more generally the exchange rate between the mantle and the Earth's surface for these two important elements. He has also extended helium isotope work to environmental geochemistry, and has demonstrated that contribution of anthropogenic input of helium to the atmosphere is important due to mining of fossil fuels such as natural gas and petroleum. Recently, he has also contributed to our understanding of the Tohoku earthquake in 2011 by studying helium isotope to estimate circulation of fluid during the earthquake. Yuji Sano was also a pioneer in the development of the ion microprobe methods in Japan. His laboratory at the University of Hiroshima hosted the first large sector ion probe (SHRIMP) installed in Japan. Sano managed to make several world premieres, such as apatite dating by the Pb-Pb and U-Pb methods in terrestrial and extraterrestrial materials. Sano and his team developed the dating of Lunar and Martian meteorites, being a controversial topic with implications for the dynamics of the Martian mantle and crust, and the new idea of Cryptomare magmatism. They also determined the ages of Archean apatite presumably linked to the emergence of life on Earth, another topic with extremely important implications. He pioneered the development of the in-situ trace element and isotope analysis in nano-scale. When he became professor of Geochemistry at the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute at the University of Tokyo, he managed to get funded and to install the first NanoSIMS instrument in Japan. This extraordinary instrument permits a spatial resolution of better than one micron, and Sano demonstrated that environmental changes can be recorded precisely in fossil clam shells and are linked to the global change presently in action. He is currently director of Marine Core Research Institute, Kochi University. Yuji Sano has published 356 papers in refereed journals, including 8 papers in Nature, 2 papers in Science, and 9 papers in sister journals of Nature and Science (such as Nature Geoscience, Nature Communications, and Science Advances) with a total citation of 14,424 and H-index of 63 (Scopus), which reflects his outstanding scientific activities.
7. Selected publications (high impact journal)
1. Wakita, H. and Sano Y. 3He/4He ratios in CH4-rich natural gases suggest magmatic origin. Nature 305, 792-794,1983.
2. Sano, Y., Nakamura, Y., Wakita, H., Urabe, A. and Tominaga, T. Helium-3 emission related to volcanic activity. Science 224, 150-151, 1984.
3. Sano, Y., Toyoda, K. and Wakita, H. 3He/4He ratios of marine ferromanganese nodules. Nature 317, 518-520, 1985.
4. Sano, Y., Wakita, H. and Huang, C.-W. Helium flux in a continental land area: Estimated from 3He/4He ratio in northern Taiwan. Nature 323, 55-57, 1986.
5. Nojiri, Y., Kusakabe, M., Hirabayashi, J., Sato, H., Sano, Y., Shinohara, H., Njine, T. and Tanyileke, G. Gas discharge at Lake Nyos. Nature 346, 322-323, 1990.
6. Igarashi, G., Saeki, S., Takahata, N., Sumikawa, K., Tasaka, S., Sasaki, Y., Takahashi, M. and Sano, Y. Groundwater radon anomaly before the Kobe earthquake in Japan. Science 269, 60-61, 1995.
7. Sano, Y., Terada, K., Takahashi, Y. and Nutman, A.P. Origin of life from apatite dating? Nature 400, 127, 1999.
8. Terada, K., Anand, M., Sokol, A.K., Bischoff, A. and Sano, Y. Cryptomare magmatism 4.35 Ga ago recorded in lunar meteorite Kalahari 009. Nature 450, 849-852, 2007.
9. Tashiro, T., Ishida, A., Hori, M., Igisu, M., Koike, M., Méjean, P., Takahata, N., Sano, Y., Komiya, T. Early trace of life from 3.95 Ga sedimentary rocks in Labrador, Canada. Nature 549, 516-518, 2017.
10. Muirhead, J.D., Fischer, T.P., Laizer, A., Oliva, A.S., Judd, E.J., Lee, H., Kazimoto, E., Ebinger, C.J., Sano, Y., Takahata, N., Tiberi, C., van Wijk, J., Dufek, J., Foley, S.F., Currie, C.A. Displacement of cratonic mantle and lithospheric channelingconcentrates deep carbon during continental rifting. Nature 582, 67-72, 2020.
