The International Workshop on “Lithospheric Evolution and Earth’s Habitability” was held in Beijing from 21 to 23 July 2025, organized by the State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution and Environmental Coevolution, IGGCAS, and co-chaired by Professors ZHAO Liang and WAN Bo.

The Workshop brought together over 200 distinguished scholars from eleven countries—including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Italy, Australia, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Indonesia—alongside leading experts from China’s premier research institutions such as Peking University, Nanjing University, Sun Yat-sen University, China University of Geosciences (Beijing and Wuhan), Tianjin University, and the Laoshan Laboratory.

Designed to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries among geology, geophysics, geochemistry, and climate science, the workshop aimed to explore the governing role of lithospheric dynamics in sustaining Earth’s long-term habitability. The Tethyan orogenic belt—the most comprehensive natural archive of lithosphere—climate interactions—served as the central focus of discussion.

Over two intensive days, 34 invited presentations were organized into four thematic pillars:

1. Deep Earth and Carbon Cycle

2. Earth System Coupling and Habitability

3. Tethys Evolution: Tectonics, Carbon, and Climate

4. Early Earth and the Evolution of Habitability

Participants emphasized that future progress requires integrating deep-Earth processes with surface system responses, as well as coupling field-based observations with high-resolution numerical modelling. They underscored that fostering such multidisciplinary convergence within Earth System Science is essential for deciphering the mechanisms that have sustained planetary habitability and for predicting future global climate trends.

The Workshop was co-sponsored by the Tethyan Geodynamics Research Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the President’s International Fellowship Initiative of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the International Lithosphere Program.

Academician WU Fuyuan is Delivering a Report.(Photo by REN Hui)

Group Photo from the Meeting.(Photo by REN Hui)