Redox, crust formation and copper porphyries

Speaker: Cin-Ty Lee, Professor, Geology Department, Rice University

The ongoing transition to renewable energies requires access to different types of natural resources, such as the critical metals needed to support scaled up electrical grids and energy storage. The field of Earth sciences must keep up with these trends by training the next generation in mineral exploration both from an applied and basic research perspective. Here, I will talk about the wonders of how geological processes align and conspire to scavenge and transport trace metals from the scale of hundreds of kilometers and concentrate these metals into a small ore deposit. I will focus on the journey of copper from the mantle through the crust to form a copper porphyry deposit. We will talk about how the interplay of tectonics, magmatism, and erosion in subduction zones influence the petrogenetic evolution of magmas and the ability for evolved magmas to mobilize and concentrate copper.