Tectonic and climatic influence on sediment-hosted ore deposits in deep time

Sediment-hosted copper–cobalt and base metal deposits are critical to the global energy transition, yet the environmental conditions that favour their formation and preservation through Earth history remain poorly understood. Evaporites are considered crucial for the formation of sediment-hosted ore deposits as they generate saline brines that circulate metals and sulphur. These tend to form in desert belts at particular latitudes where evaporation outpaces rainfall. The world’s largest sediment-hosted Cu-Co deposits – located in the Central African Copperbelt – are hosted by Neoproterozoic rocks that formed during one of Earth’s most chaotic climatic periods. Whether this is a coincidence, or whether extreme climate plays a role in mineralisation remains to be tested. The relative roles of tectonic setting, climate and latitude remain poorly constrained but have important implications for predicting where sediment-hosted ore deposits formed in deep time.

We integrate a global database of sediment-hosted ore deposits with full-plate tectonic reconstructions spanning the last billion years to explore the relationship between deposits, paleolatitude and tectonic setting. Plate reconstructions and fossil rift margin datasets are used to assess the spatial association between ore deposits and long-lived extensional settings, with a focus on Neoproterozoic basins.

Preliminary results indicate a spatial correlation between sediment-hosted ore deposits and rifted continental margins. Paleolatitude reconstructions suggest that many deposits formed at low to mid latitudes; however, their distribution varies through time, which may be driven by major climatic fluctuations, including global-scale glaciations. Ongoing work integrating depositional age constraints from key regions and paleoclimate model outputs aims to further quantify these relationships and refine predictive frameworks for underexplored sedimentary basins.