Fluid chemistry and critical mineral enrichment in salty metamorphic belts

澳大利亚的几个地质区域蕴藏着铜-金-钴和铀-稀土元素矿藏，对我们的经济价值数十亿美元。随着世界向可再生能源经济转型，这些地区对澳大利亚将继续发挥重要作用，因为它们可以提供转型所需的一些最关键的金属：铜、钴、稀土元素。该项目旨在对形成这些矿床的地质过程有一个基本的定量了解。我们将进行实验，以生成控制高盐度流体释放和迁移的变质和构造过程的定量模型，这些高盐度流体是运输各种金属的理想选择。

Several geological regions in Australia are worth billions of dollars to our economy in their contained copper-goldcobalt and uranium-rare earth element mineral deposits. These regions will continue to be important to Australia as the world transitions to a renewable energy economy because they can provide some of the most critical metals needed for that transition: Cu, Co, rare earth elements. This project aims to provide a fundamental quatitative understanding of the geological processes that form these deposits. We will conduct experiments to generate quantitative models of the metamorphic and structural processes that control the liberation and migration of highly saline fluids, which are ideal for transporting a large range of metals.