DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0593-2
论文题名: Global distribution of sediment-hosted metals controlled by craton edge stability
作者: Hoggard M.J. ; Czarnota K. ; Richards F.D. ; Huston D.L. ; Jaques A.L. ; Ghelichkhan S.
刊名: Nature Geoscience
ISSN: 17520894
出版年: 2020
卷: 13, 期: 7 起始页码: 504
结束页码: 510
语种: 英语
英文关键词: base metal
; craton
; geological structure
; heat flow
; mineral exploration
; mineralization
; rifting
; sedimentary basin
; spatial distribution
; sustainable development
; tectonic plate
; Calluna vulgaris
英文摘要: Sustainable development and the transition to a clean-energy economy drives ever-increasing demand for base metals, substantially outstripping the discovery rate of new deposits and necessitating dramatic improvements in exploration success. Rifting of the continents has formed widespread sedimentary basins, some of which contain large quantities of copper, lead and zinc. Despite over a century of research, the geological structure responsible for the spatial distribution of such fertile regions remains enigmatic. Here, we use statistical tests to compare deposit locations with new maps of lithospheric thickness, which outline the base of tectonic plates. We find that 85% of sediment-hosted base metals, including all giant deposits (>10 megatonnes of metal), occur within 200 kilometres of the transition between thick and thin lithosphere. Rifting in this setting produces greater subsidence and lower basal heat flow, enlarging the depth extent of hydrothermal circulation available for forming giant deposits. Given that mineralization ages span the past two billion years, this observation implies long-term lithospheric edge stability and a genetic link between deep Earth processes and near-surface hydrothermal mineral systems. This discovery provides an unprecedented global framework for identifying fertile regions for targeted mineral exploration, reducing the search space for new deposits by two-thirds on this lithospheric thickness criterion alone. © 2020, Crown. Citation statistics:
资源类型: 期刊论文
标识符: http://119.78.100.158/handle/2HF3EXSE/169616
Appears in Collections: 气候变化与战略
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作者单位: Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States; Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States; Geoscience Australia, Canberra, ACT, Australia; Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia; Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom
Recommended Citation:
Hoggard M.J.,Czarnota K.,Richards F.D.,et al. Global distribution of sediment-hosted metals controlled by craton edge stability[J]. Nature Geoscience,2020-01-01,13(7)