Probing ore deposits formation: New insights and challenges from synchrotron and neutron studies |
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| Authors: | Joël Brugger Allan Pring Frank Reith Chris Ryan Barbara Etschmann Weihua Liu Brian O’Neill Yung Ngothai |
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| Institution: | 1. Key Laboratory of Mineral Resources, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China;2. Division of Interdisciplinary Science, Faculty of Science, Kochi University, Kochi 780-8520, Japan;3. School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences Beijing, 29 Xueyuan Road, Beijing 100083, China;4. State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China;5. State Key Laboratory of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China;1. CSIRO Mineral Resources, Clayton, Vic 3168, Australia;2. School of Earth, Atmosphere and the Environment, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia;3. Earth and Environmental Sciences, Los Alamos National Laboratory, P.O. Box 1663, M.S. J535, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA;4. CNRS, Université Grenoble Alpes, Institut NEEL, F-38000 Grenoble, France;5. ESRF - The European Synchrotron, CS 40220, 38403, Grenoble, France;1. Key Laboratory of Mineralogy and Metallogeny, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 511 Kehua Street, Wushan, Guangzhou 510640, China;2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;3. Mineral Exploration Research Centre, Harquail School of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University, 935 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury, Ontario P3E 2C6, Canada;4. South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 164 Xingang Street, Guangzhou 510301, China;5. School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230009, China;1. School of Earth, Atmosphere and the Environment, Monash University, Clayton, 3800, VIC, Australia;2. CSIRO Mineral Resources, Clayton, VIC 3168, Australia;3. School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK;4. CNRS, Université Grenoble Alpes, Institut NEEL, F-38000 Grenoble, France |
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| Abstract: | The understanding of the physico-chemical processes leading to the formation and weathering of ore deposits plays an increasingly important role in mineral exploration. Synchrotron, neutron, and nuclear radiation are contributing to this endeavour in many ways, including (i) support the modelling of ore transport and deposition, by providing molecular-level understanding of solvent–solute interaction and thermodynamic properties for the important metal complexes in brines, vapours, and supercritical fluids over the range of conditions relevant for the formation of ore deposits (i.e., temperature 25–600 °C; pressure 1–109 Pa; and fluid compositions varying from hypersaline (e.g., >50 wt% NaCl) to volatile-rich (e.g., CO2, CH4, and H2S)); (ii) track the fluids that travelled through rocks and predict their ore-forming potential by analysing hydrothermal minerals and remnants of those fluids trapped in these minerals as ‘fluid inclusions’; (iii) characterize the biochemical controls on metal mobility in soils to predict the geochemical footprint of a buried mineral deposit.X-ray fluorescence (XRF), particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE), and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) are the most common techniques used in support of mineral exploration. Analytical challenges are related to (i) the complexity of heterogeneous natural samples, which often contain only low concentrations of the elements of interest; (ii) beam sensitivity, especially for redox-sensitive elements in aqueous fluids or biological samples; (iii) extreme sample environments, e.g., in-situ study of fluids at high pressure and temperature. Thus, critical improvements need to be made on a number of fronts to: (i) develop more efficient detectors, able to map large areas in heterogeneous samples (e.g., 106–108 pixels per map), and also to collect a maximum number of photons to limit sample exposure and beam damage; (ii) integrate techniques (e.g., XRF, XAS, and X-ray diffraction (XRD)) on a single beamline, and promote synergy between neutron-, synchrotron-, and nuclear microprobe-based methods; (iii) advance the theory (e.g., quantitative XANES interpretation; X-ray extended range technique (XERT) measurements) to gain maximum information from the hard-won datasets. |
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