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Understanding the formation of copper deposits of the porphyry type may be essential for the "green economy."

 A key finding regarding the creation of mineral deposits that will help us move toward a "green economy" has been made by scientists. According to a recent collaborative study conducted by Lawrence Carter from the University of Exeter's Camborne School of Mines, the fast shift in the underlying magmatic plumbing system that causes porphyry-type copper deposits to occur.

The work challenges the conventional wisdom that magmatic systems' "fertility," or capacity for mineralization, increases gradually over millions of years and on an arc-scale. Instead, it presents a new 4D model for the genesis of porphyry-type copper deposits. Instead, a change from non-mineralizing to porphyry deposit-forming magmas may occur over a period of less than 200 kyrs at a rate that is an order of magnitude faster. This is thought to be caused by a shift in magma production from the middle crust to the lower crust, which was likely brought on by the entry of considerably hotter magmas from the mantle.

These findings, according to the researchers, will aid exploratory geologists in discovering the newest porphyry copper deposits. Most of the world's copper and molybdenum, as well as significant quantities of gold and other metals, are found in porphyry-type deposits. These materials are increasingly in demand for power transmission and for use in green technologies like electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels. As a result, they are the main focus of numerous mining firms around the world. The problem is that most large near-surface deposits have already been found and therefore geologists are having explore deeper and under thicker layers of younger rocks to find them. There is therefore a growing need to better understand where and how porphyry copper deposits form and for new methods to find them.

The current study was conducted in the Nevadan Yerington Batholith, which includes one of the best-exposed (8 km deep) sections across a magmatic-hydrothermal system, from volcanic to plutonic environments, including four porphyry deposits. This is because of the upper crust's tilting there. As a result, earlier research in the area served as the foundation for most of what is known about the formation of porphyry-type deposits today.

The study's lead author and Associate at Camborne School of Mines, located on the Penryn Campus of the University of Exeter, Lawrence Carter, claims that "By combining field observations, geochemistry, and cutting-edge high precision zircon U-Pb geochronology, we studied the world's best exposed porphyry system in order to address the previously fragmented understanding of the magmatic timescales associated with porphyry-deposit formation. We demonstrate how rapidly changing magmatic plumbing in magmatic systems can "switch-on" the formation of ore deposits by reaching a deeper, more volatile-rich, "fertile" zone."

Says Lawrence Carter "We also demonstrate that the distinctive geochemical characteristics known as "fertile" that are associated with ore-forming magmas emerge practically instantly (within 200 kyrs) and are exhibited throughout the magmatic system, including in the subordinate volcanic rocks. This greatly improves their usage as exploration tools for porphyry copper deposits and boosts our confidence in the resolution of geochemical markers connected to "fertile" systems."

Scientific Reports published the study.

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