Ending of the Special section "20 years of the Centro de Geociencias"

SPECIAL SECTION "20 years of the Centro de Geociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México”

The maturity of a scientific community is manifested in its publications. In 2024, we transformed from the Centro de Geosciencias (CEGEO) to the Instituto de Geociencias of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). After 20 years of its creation at the Juriquilla UNAM campus, we wanted to celebrate this step by publishing a special section in the Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geológicas (RMCG). The RMCG is one of the 39 Mexican scientific journals in the Journal Citation Report of the Web of Sciences. Ten review articles and six frontier science articles have been published for the celebration in six issues (39-2 to 41-1). The review articles present a synthesis of the work done by principal investigators, providing an overview of how knowledge has advanced on various topics to date.

Contributions to the knowledge of the geological provinces of Mexico are presented using geophysical or geological methods. The publication by Carrasco-Núñez (2024, vol. 40-3) establishes the nature and origin of the eastern sector of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (TMVB) based on decades of study of its volcanoes. For the western part of the TMVB, Arzate et al. (2023, vol. 40-1) locate the magmatic system that feeds the Colima Volcano using magnetotelluric methods, while the work by Martínez-Valdez et al. (2023, vol. 40-1) presents the risk of lahars with numerical modeling in the same volcano. Also, using magnetotelluric methods, the northern limit of the Gulf of California is established by Fragoso-Irineo et al. (vol. 40-3). At another scale, but for the same geological province, the work by Manea and Manea (2024-vol. 41-1) presents the result of 15 years of numerical modeling of the subduction of the Cocos Plate under the North American Plate, while the work by Guzmán-Speziale (2022, vol. 39-2) documents how deformation was manifested in faults and earthquakes, at the junction of three tectonic plates: North America, Cocos, and Caribbean. At a local level, for the center of the TMVB, Rodríguez-Pérez (2023, vol., 40-3) models soil movement due to earthquakes with a century of separation. Regarding the theory of fault activity resulting from tectonics, two works are presented: the one by Xu et al. (2023, vol. 40-1) with a review of methods for calculating displacement in faults, and the one by Nieto-Fuentes et al. (2022, vol. 39-3) with a multi-platform application for calculating the net displacement of faults. Although there is a recent and active volcanic arc in the Mexican territory, in the Mesa Central of Mexico (MC) there are remnants of extensional deformation over more than 48 Myr. Nieto-Samaniego et al. (2023, vol. 40-2) provide a review of the studies made in the Central Plateau in the last 20 years, offering a complete overview of its tectonic evolution during the Cenozoic; while Carranza and Wang (2023, vol. 40-2) present the discovery of the first complete fossil of a bear (Agriotherium, mammalia-urside) from the Henfilian, collected in Zacatecas, within the MC.

To show how scientific knowledge is applied to current issues, we have the article by Ortega-Guerrero (2024, vol. 41-1) in which, according to its studies, it is discussed how groundwater flows in five basins in the southern part of the Central Plateau and the center of the TMVB. Regarding climate change, Carrillo-Chávez et al. (2024, vol. 41-1) document, in volcanoes of central Mexico, how glaciers have been reduced in tropical zones over the last 60 years. Regarding energy resources, Carrasco-Núñez (2023, vol. 40-3) announces the high geothermal potential in the east of the TMVB, Ferrari (2024, vol. 41-1) documents the depletion of oil in recent decades and discusses its implications for Mexico's future energy; and González-Partida et al. (2022, vol. 39-3), present a review on the accumulation of Coal in Coahuila.

The geological record of Mexico is very extensive, covering rocks from the Precambrian ages. Solari et al. (2024, vol. 41-1), using the isotopic geochemistry laboratories of the Center of Geosciences, present findings that reveal tectonic events that occurred in the south of Mexico around a billion years ago.

We thank the Institute of Geosciences researchers for contributing these articles, which will undoubtedly serve as a starting point for generating new knowledge about Mexico's geology and geophysics.

Susana A. Alaniz Álvarez

Guest Editor

Ángel F. Nieto-Samaniego

Natalia Pardo Villaveces

Coeditors in Chief