在世界屋脊，探索中國

對于青藏高原以及更為寬泛的亞洲文化與歷史，我的母親一直都很著迷。因此，伴隨著這些東亞的民間故事，我度過了自己的童年。

來到青藏高原

身處戶外，特別是置身于大自然之中，地球上的自然奇觀與自然災害，比如火山、地震、龍卷風及海嘯都深深地觸動著我。當需要為自己的碩士以及后來的博士論文選題時，我毫不猶豫地選擇了一個與大規?；顒訑鄬酉嚓P的研究項目，而該斷層便出現在青藏高原的西部。我的任務是查明1000多公里長的喀喇昆侖斷裂帶的平均滑速率，從而確定大地震已經發生及可能發生的“脈沖周期”。這個特別的研究課題引起了我的興趣，因為它需要在被譽為“世界屋脊”、平均海拔4500米的青藏高原開展野外調查。這個面積超100萬平方公里的巨大而平坦的地區也被稱為“世界的第三極”，因為這里包含了數量僅次于北極和南極的冰川以及淡水。同時，因為該高原是許多亞洲大河如恒河、雅魯藏布江、印度河、長江、瀾滄江（湄公河）、怒江（薩爾溫江）和黃河的源頭，為數百萬計的人群提供著必要的淡水資源，這里也被稱為“亞洲水塔”。

我非常喜愛物理學與地球物理學，但這兩門完全是理論性學科。于是，在學習完這兩門課程之后，我便抱著輕松的心態來到野外，接受一門全新的科學性學科——地質學培訓，這樣便可以對我如此摯愛的大自然母親進行更加深入的了解。基于此，我在中國的青藏高原度過了一個半月的時光。那時，23歲的我剛剛開始攻讀博士學位。我們的探險隊擁有一批法國和中國科學家，而我則是隊中最年輕的成員，也是唯一的女性。這是一次真正的冒險，因為那時——2002年青藏高原仍然遠在天邊，難以企及。由于幾天之內都不會遇到加油站，所以有兩輛卡車幫助我們運送設備、食品、帳篷及汽油，最初，我們在拉薩停留了幾日，并適應了那里3700米的高海拔，同時品味了那里的文化，欣賞了美麗的風景，然后，我們便向藏西進發。最初，我們穿行在柏油路上，但隨后道路漸漸變為土路——因為我們正在穿越一片只有牦牛、藏野驢、狼、熊、巖羊、藏羚羊等野生動物才能棲息的廣袤土地。從西藏第二大城市日喀則向西行駛，隨著海拔從4200米上升至4800米，風景也發生了變化，雖然這里綠化程度仍相對較高，有樹木和農作物，也有許多小村莊佇立在海拔4000米上下的地方，但隨后，開始變成有著短草和大部分鹽湖的巖石沙漠，與背景中的喜馬拉雅山及其白雪皚皚的山脈形成了美麗的對比。經過一周的駕駛，我們到達了喀喇昆侖斷層的南端，這里有著金字塔形的神山——海拔6656米的岡仁波齊。這座山是亞洲三大河流的源頭：雅魯藏布江即布拉馬普特拉河、印度河和薩特勒季河。在這里，我們花了幾周的時間采集巖石樣本，進行地形測量，并沿著斷層繪制地圖。

在后來的假期中，我離開西藏，去探索中國的其他地區，比如云南、廣西、安徽等。在此過程中，我因為無法同司機或當地人溝通，開始變得沮喪。因此，當我一回到巴黎，便開始進行中文課程的學習，這樣便可以在下次旅行中更好地交流！那時，我從未想過有一天會將中國稱為家，更不用說用中文進行科學演講，用中文在國家自然科學基金委員會（NFSC）的項目中答辯。不僅如此，我還嫁給一個亞洲男人，或許我的女兒也會在未來把中文當作母語！

在攻讀博士及后期入職博士后期間，我有幸先后六次前往青藏高原，去采集那些有科學價值的樣品，當然不是很多人認為的那種商業價值！這些樣品將揭示許多奧秘，其中就包括喀喇昆侖斷層相當快的平均滑動速率——約為5—10毫米/年，這將有助于重建青藏高原南部和西部的古氣候。就像世界上大多數地方一樣，最大的冰川推進發生在大約4萬年前，而不是在2萬年前的末次盛冰川。

移居中國

考慮到我的研究重點是青藏高原的活動斷層及過往發生在那里的地震，于是，我在歐洲的瑪麗·居里獎學金的支持下，在美國斯坦福大學完成了自己的博士后研究之后，便順其自然地加入了位于北京的中國地質科學院地質研究所，其實我已經與地質所合作幾年有余。在2010年的夏天，我僅帶著一個行李箱，就這樣搬到了北京。起初，我以為自己在這里的工作時間不會超過一到三年。然而，隨著我在中國享受生活，在青藏高原，現在被稱為高原東部的四川和云南等地區進行研究，并與研究所的中國同事進行合作，我發現我在中國的生活和工作不再索然無味。這個國家充滿了活力，以驚人的速度不斷發展，并走在技術進步的前沿。例如，微信、支付寶、淘寶以及外賣等服務應用程序讓生活變得更加便捷，這使當出國旅行仍需要現金支付時，我很懷念這種方便。自我第一次訪問中國以來，距今已有近20年，在此期間，中國取得的成就令世人矚目。中國的學術環境極具活力和激發性，所以完全沒必要羨慕西方，由于政府的慷慨資助，中國的研究機構正受益于最先進的設備與設施。

在北京工作伊始，我是地質所里唯一的外國人，現在也是。在日常生活中，我的首要任務便是掌握流利的中文。在女兒出生前的七年時間里，我每周都在一位私人教師那里上課。在一開始，我發現所有的同事都堅持只說中文，每次會議也都用中文進行，這讓我十分煩惱。但回想起來，這卻是最好且最快的學習方式！我是一個勤奮的人，即使在午休時間，我都在完成作業、寫漢字。同時，我的同事會耐心地糾正我的錯誤，并回答我的問題，我對此十分感激。在工作方面，我在中國的前幾個月主要是在新疆和四川進行實地考察，不僅開展了自己的研究，還讓我了解到其他團隊成員的項目，并親眼見到了高原上其他主要的活動斷層。此外，我還參加了一些全國性的會議，并與中國各地不同機構從事相關研究的同行會面。幾年后，我開始與我在法國的前法國同事進行國際合作。從那時起，我們在四川和云南共同度過了許多野外時光，完成了許多互補性研究課題，并共同撰寫了許多經同行評議后發表的出版物，甚至互派交換生。多虧了中國留學基金委，最近我的一位博士生才有機會在法國進行為期一年的學習。

事實上，早在2015年，我便開始培訓和督促自己的中國學生，通過實地考察及室內實驗來教授他們，同時帶他們參加會議，并把他們介紹給同行。在此期間，我必須自己撰寫申請以獲得國家資助來支持我的學生，以及實地考察和實驗室費用、出版費用、設備經費等。多年來，我成功獲得了多項國家自然科學基金項目的資助，這其中就包括2020年“國家自然科學基金委重點國際合作基金項目”，支持了我與法國格勒諾布爾—阿爾卑斯和里昂兩所大學進行持續而富有成效的合作。當然，如果得不到我的研究室主任李海兵所帶領的研究團隊的大力協助，這一切都不可能實現。我們之間的工作關系很融洽，并在各種任務上互相幫助。例如，他們幫助我用中文翻譯我的資助申請并進行修改和潤色，而我則幫助他們修改他們的英文論文和國際方面的工作。經過長期的練習及和同事間的訓練，我成了那個能在國家自然科學基金委員會評審專家組面前用中文對話、回答問題的人，并為我的項目進行陳述。

我們的團隊領導一直積極主動地去尋找資助機會并確保資金，向資深同行推薦我們這些年輕的科學家。他毫不猶豫地為我創造機會，讓我能夠與其他杰出的中國科學家們討論我的工作及成就，并讓我得到獲獎提名。2020年，我獲得了黃汲清青年地質科學技術獎，2021年，我在北京人民大會堂獲頒中國政府友誼獎，這讓我很驚訝。劉鶴副總理為我和其他17位獲獎者頒發了精美的獎牌和證書，李克強總理發表致辭，并與我們合影。隨后是參加國慶招待會，與會人員包括大使等數百名其他重要嘉賓。我非常榮幸、自豪和感激能獲得這樣一個享有盛譽的獎項。該獎是中國政府授予為中國經濟社會發展作出重要貢獻的外國專家的最高榮譽，這是我始料未及的。

中國的發展日新月異

我對中國的快速發展印象深刻，尤其是那些位于西部的偏遠省份，其大小城市被高速鐵路和高速公路連通。當然，這并非易事。例如，正在建設的成都至拉薩的川藏鐵路是中國目前正在應對的一個真正的技術挑戰。事實上，該偏遠地區位于青藏高原東南部，毗鄰喜馬拉雅山東部的一些最高山峰，如7782米的南迦巴瓦峰，地形以高海拔和高起伏為特征，中國的三條河流金沙江（長江）、瀾滄江（湄公河）和怒江（薩爾溫江），在高原上切割出深深的峽谷。這樣的地形要求鐵路隧道和一些橋梁占96.4%，其中最長的將達到42公里！因此，為了安全防范，如此艱巨的工程項目，需要像我這樣的野外地質學家進行區域地震災害和斷層活動性的研究。我從2012年開始對青藏高原東部活動斷層開展研究，如鮮水河斷裂帶的研究在這樣一個項目中是非常及時的，川藏鐵路將穿越的鮮水河斷裂帶即便不是全世界，也是全中國活動性最強的斷裂帶之一，平均每30年多年就會發生一次7級大地震。政府要求我們沿著擬建設的鐵路路線進行詳細的實地研究，我們也得到了必要的資金支持。我很自豪地說，這種細致的研究使我和同事在川西康定地區發現了一條全新世活動斷層，促使決策層微小地改變了鐵路路線，以減少它將穿越的活動斷層的數量和可能帶來的災害。但不幸的是，當該地區下一次大地震來襲時，這并不能避免破壞或生命損失，但它將降低風險，并為更好和更安全的建設實踐提供了可能。

當我在四川映秀和北川瞻仰2008年汶川大地震遺址時，我被深深地感動了：為了讓人們銘記這段歷史，中國政府選擇留下被摧毀的城鎮。這是我第一次親眼見識地震的威力。這真的會讓你意識到，與大自然相比，人類是多么微不足道。我自己的研究確實有助于人們了解大地震是如何發生的，它們發生的頻率以及下一次地震可能發生在哪里。2021年，當時青海省的一個偏遠地區發生大地震時，我正好在中國，此地靠近黃河源頭，海拔高度約4200米。由于該地區地勢相對平坦，并被草原和沼澤覆蓋，人口極為稀少，所以除玉樹—西寧高速公路上的一座橋梁外，地震基本沒有造成人員傷亡及其他基礎設施損壞。我們的考察隊在地震發生后的一天內到達，并沿著151公里長的地表破裂帶開始了為期數周的震后實地調查。在地震后的幾天里，我們每天經歷多達6次余震。這也是我們為什么會睡在當地政府提供的帳篷里，而不是附近可能被地震破壞的酒店中。今年早些時候，青海又發生了一場強烈地震——6.9級門源地震，但發生在另一個主要活動斷層——海原斷層上，我們也是在第二天到達了這個偏遠的山區——北祁連山地區。我們繪制并測量了地表破裂帶，在地面上可以追蹤27公里。幸運的是，此次地震沒有造成人員傷亡，但蘭州至烏魯木齊高速鐵路上的一條隧道和橋梁嚴重受損。

我將繼續積極地研究青藏高原及鄰區的活動斷層，以降低地震風險，并幫助我們了解這些地區過去的氣候是如何演變的，從而努力預測未來的氣候變化。這不僅是另一個我非常關心的話題，也是一個中國越來越感興趣的話題。為此，我將進行實地研究，與科學界和更廣泛的人們分享自己的發現，同時教育學校的孩子們尊重和保護我們美麗的星球及這里的居民，并鼓勵他們從事科學研究、教學，以培養未來的科學家及研究人士。最后，去試圖提升當地居民的風險意識——一種對自己生活地區及未來一生中可能遭遇到的風險意識。我的母親曾經和我一起去了青藏高原，實現了她的一個畢生夢想。當邊境重新開放時，我也會讓我的朋友和家人享受中國的文化和歷史，并介紹他們到我最喜歡的旅游勝地。我也將繼續留在北京，留在這個安全度和國際化程度都很高的城市中，并在這種環境中撫養我的女兒，以確保她充分意識到她歐洲和亞洲的雙重文化背景。當她四歲時被問到來自哪里時，她自豪地回答：“中國！”我依然相信中國仍有很多東西可以提供。我想了解更多中國的語言和文化，繼續享受中國人民的歡笑和幸福，期待看到中國接下來的成就！

My mother has always been fascinated by Tibet and, more broadly, by Asian culture and history. As a result, I was raised hearing these eastern Asian folktales throughout my childhood.

On the Tibetan Plateau

I’ve always been drawn to the outdoors, specifically nature, and our planet’s natural wonders and natural disasters such as volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and tsunamis. When it came to choose a topic for my Master’s and later, Ph.D. thesis, I did not hesitate for a moment and chose a research project on a large active fault in far western Tibet. My task was to ascertain the average slip rate of the ＞1,000-kilometer-long Karakorum fault and, consequently, how often large earthquakes have occurred and are likely to occur in the future. This particular research subject sparked my interest because it required fieldwork on the Tibetan Plateau, the “Roof of the World” with average elevation: 4,500 metres above sea level. This vast and flat plateau with more than one million kmis also referred to as the “third pole” due to the fact that it contains the most glaciers and thus freshwater, following the North and South poles. At the same time it is also referred to as “Asia’s water tower” because the plateau is the source of the continent’s largest rivers, e.g., Ganges, Brahmaputra, Indus, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, and Yellow River, providing additional essential freshwater to millions of people.

After studying physics and geophysics, which I truly enjoyed but were entirely theoretical, I was to be out in the field, receiving training in a completely new scientific discipline-geology, and learning about Mother Nature, my true passion. That is how I ended up spending a month and a half in China, on the Tibetan Plateau, when I was 23 years old and just starting my Ph.D. studies. We were a large group of French and Chinese scientists, and I was the expedition’s youngest member and sole female. It was a true adventure, as Tibet was still highly remote and hard to access at the time (2002). We had two trucks transporting our equipment, food supplies, tents, and petrol for the cars, as there would be no gas stations for several days. After a few days in Lhasa to acclimate to the high elevation of 3,700 metres, to enjoy the culture and beautiful scenery, we set out for the far west, initially on paved roads that quickly turned into dirt roads—passing through these vast lands where only wild animals like yak, Tibetan ass a.k.a. kiang, wolf, bear, blue sheep, gazelle, etc. roam freely. When driving west of Lhasa’s second-largest city, Xigaze, the landscape changes as you ascend to the plateau’s average elevation from 4,200 metres to 4,800 metres. While it is relatively green with trees and crops and has numerous small villages below 4,000 metres, it then transforms into a rock desert with short grass and mostly salty lakes, which contrasts beautifully with the Himalayas and its snowcapped mountains in the background. After a week of driving, we arrived at the southern end of the Karakorum fault, where the pyramid-shaped, sacred Mount Kailas -of 6,656 metres Kangrinboqe is located. This mountain is the source of three of Asia’s largest rivers: the Yarlung Zangbo or Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej. We spent several weeks collecting rock samples, performing topographic measurements, and mapping along the fault.

After being out in the field in Tibet and exploring a different part of China like Yunnan, Guanxi, Anhui, etc. for holidays afterward, I became frustrated with my inability to communicate with the drivers or the locals. As a result, as soon as I came back to Paris, I started taking simple Chinese lessons so that I could communicate a little bit more on my next trip! Never in a million years would I have thought that I would one day call China home, let alone be able to give scientific talks and defend NFSC projects in Chinese, marry an Asian man, or have my daughter speak Chinese as her first language!

During my Ph.D. and later post-doc, I was fortunate enough to travel to Tibet six times to collect valuable samples which are not of commercial value, as many people believe! These samples would reveal, among other things, that the quite fast average rate at which the Karakorum fault slips is ～5-10 millimetres per year, and that would help reconstruct the paleoclimate of southern and western Tibet. The Last Glacial Maximum a.k.a. LGM (20,000 years ago) was not the most extensive glacial advance in Tibet.

When I moved to China

Given that my research focused on active faults and past earthquakes on the Tibetan Plateau, it was only natural that I joined the Institute of Geology at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in Beijing, with whom I had already collaborated for 8 years, after my Post-doc at Stanford University in the United States thanks to a European Marie Curie Fellowship. That is how, in the summer of 2010, I moved to Beijing with just one suitcase. At first, I assumed I would be here for no more than one to three years. However, as I continued to enjoy living in China, conducting research on the Tibetan Plateau now mostly in eastern Tibet, Sichuan and Yunnan, etc., and collaborating with Chinese colleagues at my institute, my life and work in China have never been boring. I find that this country is brimming with vitality; it is constantly evolving at a lightspeed pace, at the cutting edge of technological advancement. For instance, service apps such as WeChat, Alipay, Taobao, and food delivery, to name a few, make life so much easier, and I miss this when traveling abroad, where cash is still required to purchase items. It’s truly remarkable what China has accomplished in the two decades since my first visit. China’s academic scene has nothing to envy from that of the west, as it is extremely dynamic and stimulating. Research institutions benefit from state-of-the-art facilities, courtesy of generous government funding.

I was the only foreigner at my institution when I first started working in Beijing, and I still am. My first priority in daily life was to become fluent in Chinese. I took weekly lessons from a private teacher for seven years until my daughter was born. At first, I found it annoying that all of my coworkers insisted on speaking only Chinese to me, that every meeting was held in Chinese. Looking back, this was the best and quickest way to learn! I was a hard worker who spent my lunch breaks doing homework and practising writing characters. My coworkers would patiently correct my errors and answer my questions, which I appreciate. In terms of work, I spent my first few months in China in the field, primarily in Xinjiang and Sichuan, not only to conduct my own research but also to learn about the other team members’ projects and to see firsthand the plateau’s other major active faults. I also attended a number of national conferences and met peers working on related topics in various institutions across China. I began international collaborations with my former French colleagues based in France a few years later. Since then, we have spent many joint field seasons in Sichuan and Yunnan on complementary research topics, as well as co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, and even had students exchange. Thanks to the China Scholarship Council, one of my Ph.D. students recently spent a year in France.

Indeed, in 2015, I began training and supervising my own Chinese students and teaching them in the field and in the lab, bringing them to conferences, and introducing them to peers. I had to write my own grant applications to get national funding to support my students, field and lab costs, publishing costs, equipment, and so on. Over the years, I’ve successfully obtained several NSFC grants, including the prestigious “International collaboration grant of NSFC” in 2020, to support my ongoing, fruitful collaboration with the university of Grenoble-Alpes and that of Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in France. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the tremendous assistance of my research team, led by Li Haibing, our department’s director. We have a great working relationship and help each other with a variety of tasks. For example, they assist me in translating and organizing my grant applications in Chinese while I assist them with their English papers and international aspects of their work. After hours of practice and training with my colleagues, I was the one who presented and answered questions in Chinese in front of the committee of Chinese Professors to fend my project.

Our team leader has always been proactive in identifying funding opportunities, securing funding and promoting us, the younger scientists, among our senior peers. He has never hesitated to put my name forward and provide me with opportunities to discuss my work and accomplishments with other eminent Chinese scientists and nominate me for prizes and awards. In 2020, I was awarded the Huang Jiqing Youth Geological Science and Technology Award, and in 2021, I was honored to receive the Chinese Government Friendship Award at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. While Vice-Premier Liu He presented a beautiful medal and certificate to me and the other 17 awardees, China’s Premier Li Keqiang delivered the speech and sat down for a group photo with us. The National Day gala, which included hundreds of other important guests such as ambassadors, followed the ceremony. I am incredibly honored, proud, and grateful to be the recipient of such a prestigious award. The Friendship Award is the highest honor bestowed on foreign experts who have contributed to China’s social and economic development by the Chinese government. That was something I hadn’t anticipated.

馬曉麗在位于四川省甘孜甘州的中國墨石公園景區實地考察

China’s fast development

I find it very impressive how fast China is developing, especially the remote western provinces that connect large and small cities with high-speed railways and highways. It is, for sure, no easy task to handle. For example, the ongoing construction of the Sichuan-Tibet railway between Chengdu and Lhasa is a real technical challenge that China is tackling now. Indeed, the topography of this remote region of southeastern Tibet is characterized by high elevation and high relief, dissected by three rivers in China: the Mekong (Lancang Jiang), Yangtze (Changjiang), and Salween (Nujiang), which incise deep gorges into the plateau, adjacent to some of the highest mountain peaks of the eastern Himalaya (Namche Barwa, 7,782 metres). Such topography requires the railway to be at 96.4% in tunnels and a few bridges, the longest of which will be 42 kilometres long! It is thus clear that for the sake of safety, such a Herculean engineering project requires field geologists like me to conduct research on regional earthquake hazards and faulting activity. My research which I began in 2012 on eastern Tibet and on the Xianshuihe fault, one of China’s, if not the world’s, most tectonically active faults, with one M7 earthquake every 30 years on average, is extremely timely in such a project. The government has asked us to conduct detailed field studies along the proposed railway route, and we have been given the necessary funding. I’m proud to say that such meticulous research enabled me and my colleagues to discover a new fault in the Kangding region of western Sichuan, prompting authorities to change the train route slightly to reduce the number of active faults it would cross. Unfortunately, this will not prevent destruction or loss of life when the region’s next large earthquake strikes, but it will reduce the risk and allow for better and safer construction practices.

馬曉麗調查2021年青海省瑪多地震造成的裂縫

I was deeply moved when I visited the site of the devastating 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Yingxiu and Beichuan in Sichuan, where the Chinese government chose to leave the destroyed towns intact for people’s awareness. This was the first time I saw what an earthquake is capable of with my own eyes. It really makes you realize how insignificant we are in com-parison to Mother Nature. My own research does help people understand how large earthquakes behave, how frequently they occur and where the next one might strike. In 2021, I was “lucky” enough to be in China when a large earthquake struck a remote part of Qinghai (2021 Maduo earthquake, M7.4), near the Yellow River’s source, at ～4,200 metres of elevation. Except for one bridge on the Yushu-Xining highway, that relatively flat region is covered in grasslands and marshes and has an extremely sparse population, so no casualties or other infrastructure damage occurred. Our team arrived one day after the earthquake and began our post-earthquake field investigation for a few weeks along the 151 kilometreslong surface rupture. In the days following the earthquake, we experienced up to six aftershocks per day. That is why we slept in government-provided tents rather than nearby hotels, which the earthquake may have weakened. Another large earthquake—Menyuan earthquake with M6.9 struck earlier this year in Qinghai, but on a different major active fault—the Haiyuan fault, and we arrived the next day in this remote, this time mountainous, region of the southern Qilian Mountains. We mapped and measured the surface rupture, which could be followed for 27 kilometers on the ground. Fortunately, no one was killed, but one tunnel and bridge on the two-year-old high-speed railway line between Lanzhou and Urumqi were severely damaged.

I will continue to research active faults in and around Tibet actively, mitigate earthquake risk, and contribute to our understanding of how past climate evolved in those regions in order to work towards predicting future climate change, another topic near and dear to my heart and one that China is increasingly interested in. I will accomplish this by conducting field research, sharing my findings with the scientific community as well as broader audiences, teaching school children to respect our beautiful planet and its inhabitants and encourage them to pursue science studies, teaching, and training graduate students who will become tomorrow’s scientists, and finally, attempting to raise awareness among local populations about the risks they may face in their lifetime. My mother went to Tibet with me once, fulfilling one of her lifelong dreams. When the borders reopen, I will also allow friends and family to enjoy China and its culture and history and introduce them to my favorite tourist destinations. I will keep raising my daughter in this extremely safe and highly international environment, Beijing, and make sure she is fully aware of her dual cultural background of Europe and Asia. When asked where she is from at four years old, she proudly answers, “China!”. I still believe that China still has so much to offer. I want to learn more about the Chinese language and culture, continue to enjoy the laughter and happiness of the Chinese people, and look forward to seeing what China achieves next!