Remobilization and concentration processes of critical metals in orogens: Highlighting the role of deformation and metamorphic recrystallization?
Speaker: Associate Professor Bénédicte Cenki
Date: Wednesday 8th February, 2023
Time: 11:00 – 12:00
Location: QUT Garden’s Point, Room: O-314
Agenda:
Many rare minerals are critical to the sustained development of 21th century technologies at the core of our emerging low- carbon society. If we continue to remove these minerals in a traditional way, we will encounter the supply shortage and environmental crisis in a few decades again. Securing their ecologically and politically appropriate supply is essential. Over the past decade, the drastic increase in demand combined with the geopolitics of supply has encouraged the mining industry to re-visit historic mines in western countries, where goods are produced and consumed. Climate change means we will increasingly rely on next-generation solar cells, efficient wind turbines and rechargeable batteries that will power the renewables revolution. For instance, Rare Earth Elements are key to the powerful magnets used in hybrid cars and wind turbines, Germanium (Ge) is essential to optic fiber systems used in military and civil telecommunication as well as the photovoltaic industry. Critical metals exist in trace contents in most base metal ore deposits but processes responsible for their concentration into economic deposits are poorly understood. For example, Germanium, Gallium and Indium show chemical affinities with Pb-Zn deposits that are often located in ancient orogens. This means that rocks may have suffered metamorphism and fluid-assisted deformation during orogenesis. In this talk, I would like to shed a novel light on the role of metamorphism, deformation, static or dynamic recrystallization and associated fluid flow in remobilizing and concentrating critical metals. Metamorphic processes may upgrade or not the endowment of the deposit. In either case, metamorphic processes are generally favorable conditions for redistributing critical metals in highly concentrated critical minerals that may make them more accessible for industry if exploration/recovery strategies are adapted.
Biography:
Bénédicte Cenki is A/Prof Montpellier University (France). She was a visiting researcher at the Sydney University in 2019 and 2020. Over the past two decades, Bénédicte has developed broad research, teaching and analytical skills in the geology of metamorphic rocks (including petrology, mineralogy, geochemistry, petrochronology, structural geology and geodynamics). Her expertise allows her to tackle two major research questions in Earth Sciences: i) How mountains build and collapse, and ii) Where to find the critical minerals that are essential to the development of the green technologies at the core of emerging low-carbon societies.
Details:
| Location: | QUT Gardens Points, Room O-314 |
| Start Date: | 08/02/2023 [add to calendar] |
| Start Time: | 11:00 |
| End Date: | 08/02/2023 |
| End Time: | 12:00 |
| Enquiries: | https://www.qut.edu.au/about/faculty-of-science/school-of-earth-and-atmospheric-sciences |