History and Future of Metals in Shales: Knowledge and Inspiration for Next Generation Geologists

Speaker: Swapan Sahoo, Ph. D., Principal Geologist, Exploration Petroleum Systems Analyst, Equinor US

In the world of the transition to clean-energy, and the rising demand of base-metals (Cu, Ni, Co, Li, Nb), are we ready to meet this demand and more importantly, safely and sustainably reach those goals? This demand for base-metals, markedly exceeding the discovery rate of new deposits, requires enormous technological developments in exploration success. With our current core competencies, the important question is—how ready are we as geologists?

In this presentation, I wish to share the history of trace metals in Earth’s system science, how research has been developed over the years, and how research advances can meet the current need for base metals and lead us to the energy transition. I will show some case studies from different time periods as well as projects I am involved with UT and BEG. I will end with some innovative ideas collected from my experience with energy industry (hydrocarbon and metals) to address the upcoming challenge to find enough of these base-metals. Perhaps we all need to be more open and work as a larger team of integrated geologists, to look for base-metals and build towards a framework for identifying fertile regions for targeted mineral exploration.