Chen, Yue-Gau陳于高

Distinguished Research Fellow and Director

Research Interests

Paleoclimate and environmental changes by isotope geochemistry, Earth systems and sustainability sciences, Geochronology developments and their applications, Kinematics of seismogenic faults and seismic hazard mitigation

Representative Publications

Nguyen, D.C., Chen, Y.G.*, Chiang, H.W.*, Shen, C.C., Wang, X., Doan, L.D., Yuan, S., Lone, M.A., Yu, T.L., Lin, Y., Kuo,Y.T. (2020) A decadal-resolution stalagmite record of strong Asian summer monsoon from northwestern Vietnam over the Dansgaard–Oeschger events 24. J. Asian Earth Sci.- X 3, 100027.

Wang, Y., Lin, Y.N.*, Ota, Y., Chung, L.H., Shyu, J.B.H., Chiang, H.W., Chen, Y.G., Hsu, H.H., Shen, C.C. (2022). Mud Diapir or Fault-Related Fold? On the Development of an Active Mud-Cored Anticline Offshore Southwestern Taiwan. Tectonics 41(9), e2022TC007234

Lin, K.*, Shen, C.C., Duan, W., Tan, L., Kong, X., Lee, S.Y., Chen, Y.G., Wang, X. (2022). Early anthropogenic impacts on the Indian summer monsoon induced by land-use and land-cover changes. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 127, e2022JD036754

Hsu, W.H., Byrne, T.B., Lewis, J.C., Chen, Y.G.*, Yeh, P.Y. (2022). Synorogenic extension and extrusion in southern Taiwan. Tectonophysics 840, 229562

Shyu, C.J., Tan, E.*, Kirstein, L.A., Stuart, F.M., Chen, Y.G. (2023). The exhumation history of the middle Hsuehshan Range, Taiwan, as revealed by zircon thermochronological modeling. Tectonophysics, 860, 229907

Lin,K.*, Han, T., Zhang, Y., Shen, C.C., Lee, S.Y., Wang, J., Mohtar, A.T., Huang, K.F., Chiang, H.W., Chen, Y.G.*, Wang, X. (2024). Influences of East Asian winter monsoon and El Niño-Southern Oscillation variability on the Kuroshio intrusion to the South China Sea over the past 60 years. Geophys. Res. Lett., 51(2), e2023GL104155

Chen, P.J., Wu, C.H., Chen, Y.G.*, Lee, S.Y.* (2024). Impact of solar activity and ENSO on the early summer Asian Monsoon during the last millennium. Geophys. Res. Lett., 51(3), e2023GL105668

Lu, C.H., Hsu, Y.C., Chang, C.P*, Chen, Y.G. (2024). A conjugated structure discloses interaction between two fault systems in eastern Taiwan during 2022 Guangfu earthquake. Terr. Atmos. Ocean. Sci., 35(1), 9 

Lin, K.*, Han, T., Morgan, K., Kench, P.S., Chen, Y.G., Wang, X. (2024) Tracing the stepwise warming trend in the tropical Indian Ocean through a 40-year record of oxygen isotope composition in Maldives corals. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 647, 119025

Lu, C.H., Chuang, R.C., Chiang, C.C., Yen, J.Y., Ching, K.E., Chen, Y.G.* (2025) Detecting infrastructure hazard potential change by SAR techniques on postseismic surface deformation: A case study of 2016 Meinong earthquake in southwestern Taiwan. Eng. Geol., 344, 107827

Chiang, H.W., Chen, Y.G., Lee, S.Y.*, Nguyen, D.C.*, Shen, C.C., Lin, Y., Doan, L.D. (2025) Speleothem evidence of solar modulation on the south Asia monsoon intensity. npj Clim. Atmos. Sci., 8(1), 105

Lin, K.*, Chen, M., Wang, J., Shu, C., Chen, Y.G., Wang, X. (2025) Coral records indicate six-decade rise and fall of atmospheric lead emission in China. Commun. Earth Environ., 6, 376

Highlights

Precipitation response to Heinrich Event-3 in the northern Indochina as revealed in a high-resolution speleothem record The Heinrich Event (HE), a millennial-scale cold event in the North Atlantic, is characterized by the occurrence of a large amount of coarse terrigenous grains in marine sediments. There are 7 HEs in the past 70 thousand years (HE-6 to HE-0). Among HEs, HE-3 and HE-6 have been categorized as unusual events due to lower proportions of lithic grains found in their corresponding sedimentary layers. In tropical Asia, HE-3 manifestations prominently appear in proxy records from China, Myanmar, northern Borneo, and India. It supports the climatic link between the low latitudes and the North Atlantic. However, the mechanism remains challenging because monsoon intensity may respond to HEs in different magnitudes. 
        Here, we report a new dataset of speleothem δ18O from northwestern Vietnam, which covers the duration of the HE-3 with decadal scale resolution. The δ18O data implies a pronounced excursion in precipitation beginning at around 30.8 thousand years ago (ka), reaching the minimum at 30.3 ka, and then turning to increase in precipitation at 30.2 ka, and finally returning to a higher level at 29.5 ka. It shows a gradual, discontinuous onset and termination of altered conditions with steps inferred to be on the order of several hundred years. This contrasts to the abrupt HE-3 onset and termination observed by previous studies in Asian monsoon region.
       We used a coupled slab ocean model (CAM3) to evaluate effects of different degrees of cooling associated with glacial boundary conditions. Magnitudes of cooling ranged from 6 °C and 10 °C (low and high scenarios respectively) around the British Isles relative to the control simulation. The simulated summer (June-July-August) precipitation near northwestern Vietnam presents an ~10% decline which resulted from a southward shift of Indian Ocean’s warm pool and summer ITCZ by the cooling in the North Atlantic. (Nguyen et al. 2022)

Synorogenic extension and extrusion in southern Taiwan Extensional deformation is documented in many contractional orogenic belts, which are characterized by high topography, thickened crust, and synorogenic extensional structures at high elevations or on steep topographic slopes. The direction of extension is generally perpendicular or parallel to the orogen. In southern Taiwan, those high rocks in the core of the orogenic belt are dominated by the extension, whereas the lower is dominated by the contraction. In contrast, the mountain heights and crust thickness in southern Taiwan are lower and thinner than in those classic orogens. In addition, the direction of extension is oblique to the orogen rather than orthogonal or parallel to the orogen. These observations suggest a more complicated tectonic process may be responsible for the extension in the core of southern Taiwan. This study integrates late-stage structures and their palestress inversion, with GPS and earthquake focal mechanisms to assess different hypotheses for the origin of synorogenic normal faults in the study area. This study further proposes a southwestward extrusion model in which the lateral and vertical movement of the lower crust in southern Taiwan accommodates the shortening between the obliquely colliding Peikang High and the Luzon Arc. The northeast extension normal faults in the upper crust can be interpreted as to accommodate the lateral and vertical movement of the lower crust in the southern Central Range. This study infers that this southwestward extrusion process may be younger the 0.5 Ma based on thermochronological result and the proposed onset of extrusion in southwest Taiwan is late Pleistocene. (Hsu et al. 2022)

  • Ph.D.
    Dept. of Geosciences
    National Taiwan Univ., Taiwan ROC (1993)
  • M.S.
    Dept. of Geosciences
    National Taiwan Univ., Taiwan ROC (1988)
  • B.A.
    Dept. of Geosciences
    National Taiwan Univ., Taiwan ROC (1984)

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