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GMPV5.2 | Finding NEMO – New Environments for Mineralization and Ores
Finding NEMO – New Environments for Mineralization and Ores
Convener: Niki WintzerECSECS | Co-convener: Holly Stein
Finding Disney’s little clownfish named NEMO in a vast ocean gives us a sense of scale when searching for new ore systems. Ore deposits are economic concentrations of metals that can be extracted at a profit. Thus, the definition of ore is defined by societal need, policy, and political climate. In this session, we put these downstream factors aside and ask the upstream question: Where are today’s critical metal concentrations, and when and how did they form? This knowledge is essential for exploration. In this session, we focus especially on ore-forming environments associated with W-Sn-Mo-REE and Au-Ag. Carbonatites, once an oddity in petrology, are now forefront as sources for REE in a greening economy. Ore systems featuring W-Sn-Mo are also REE carriers. The ability to directly date ore minerals and to place ore genesis in a terrane-scale time context has been groundbreaking for exploration and understanding ore genesis. This includes U-Pb dating of cassiterite and Re-Os dating of molybdenite. With an emphasis on carbonatite- and granite-related mineralization, we invite abstracts on ore deposits of any kind, and particularly where the time-space component has provided new or renewed understanding of ore formation and/or led to new discoveries in likely and unlikely environments.