Product catalogue
Minerals on the edge: Sediment-hosted base metal endowment above steps in lithospheric thickness
To meet the rising global demand for base metals – driven primarily by the transition to cleaner-energy sources – declining rates of discovery of new deposits need to be countered by advances in exploration undercover. Here, we report that 85% of the world’s sediment-hosted base metals, including all giant deposits (>10 Mt of metal), occur within 200 km of the edge of thick lithosphere, irrespective of the age of mineralisation. This implies long-term craton edge stability, forcing a reconsideration of basin dynamics and the sediment-hosted mineral system. We find that the thermochemical structure of thick lithosphere results in increased basin subsidence rates during rifting, coupled with low geothermal gradients, which ensure favourable metal solubility and precipitation. Sediments in such basins generally contain all necessary lithofacies of the mineral system. These considerations allow establishment of the first-ever national prospectus for sediment-hosted base metal discovery. Conservative estimates place the undiscovered resource of sediment-hosted base metals in Australia to be ~50–200 Mt of metal. Importantly, this work suggests that ~15% of Australia is prospective for giant sediment-hosted deposits; we suggest that exploration efforts should be focused in this area.
<b>Citation:</b> Czarnota, K., Hoggard, M.J., Richards, F.D., Teh, M., Huston, D.L., Jaques, A.L. and Ghelichkhan, S., 2020. Minerals on the edge: sediment-hosted base metal endowment above steps in lithospheric thickness. In: Czarnota, K., Roach, I., Abbott, S., Haynes, M., Kositcin, N., Ray, A. and Slatter, E. (eds.) Exploring for the Future: Extended Abstracts, Geoscience Australia, Canberra, 1–4.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2020-06-30
- Date (Publication)
- 2020-06-30T00:34:19
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/134991
- Citation identifier
- Digital Object Identifier/http://dx.doi.org/10.11636/134991
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Author Czarnota, K.
Author Hoggard, M.J.
Author Richards, F.D.
Author Teh, M.
Author Huston, D.L.
Author Jaques, A.L.
Author Ghelichkhan, S.
- Purpose
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External Publication
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Czarnota, K.
Resource provider Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division
- Spatial representation type
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
Extent
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
Resource format
- Title
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Product data repository: Various Formats
- Website
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Data Store directory containing the digital product files
Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes
- theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
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EARTH SCIENCES
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- Project
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EFTF
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- Project
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Exploring For The Future
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- Keywords
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Lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary
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- Keywords
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base metal deposits
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- Keywords
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passive seismic
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- Keywords
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sediment-hosted deposits
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- Keywords
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mineral potential
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mineral systems
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mantle
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- Keywords
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xenoliths
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- Keywords
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
- Title
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
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CC-BY
- Edition
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4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- License
Resource constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
- OnLine resource
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Extended Abstract for download (pdf) [2.9 MB]
Extended Abstract for download (pdf) [2.9 MB]
- Distribution format
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pdf
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Resource lineage
- Statement
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This work build on research conducted as part of the Exploring for the Future program reported by Hoggard, M. J., K. Czarnota, F. D. Richards, A. L. Jaques and S. Ghelichkhan 2020, Global distribution of sediment-hosted metals controlled by craton edge stability, Nature Geoscience, pre-print doi:10.31223/osf.io/2kjvc.
Metadata constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security Classification System
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
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urn:uuid/b0d2a825-8326-4d22-9c18-69f57086dcf5
- Title
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GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Czarnota, K.
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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Journal Paper and associated datasets
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
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Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/134991
- Date info (Creation)
- 2019-04-08T01:55:29
- Date info (Revision)
- 2019-04-08T01:55:29
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
- Title
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, September 2018
- Citation identifier
- https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551