By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 08.07.2020 (SciDev.Net): Scientists have discovered a new tool to predict the location of base metal deposits, which are buried too deep beneath the Earth’s surface to be found using current exploration methods. This augurs well for targeted mining of metals, such as copper, lead, zinc, which are much in demand for their use in renewable energies.

The study, published on 29^th June 2020 in the journal Nature Geoscience, found that 85 percent of all known base metal deposits and 100 percent of all “giant” deposits (those holding more than 10 million tons of metal) hosted in sedimentary basins are located on the edges of cratons – older regions of the continents, which are generally on thicker lithosphere, the rigid outermost cladding of the planet comprising the crust and upper mantle.

“These deposits generally have larger quantities of metal bound up in high-grade ores than their magmatic counterparts. Once you find the right spot, you only have to dig one hole, and buried deposits are more likely to be extracted via shafts in comparison to most current base metal mines, which are often destructive open-pit operations,” says Mark Hoggard, lead author of the study and postdoctoral researcher at Harvard and Columbia Universities.

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