Novel Sources of Critical Minerals from Porphyry Copper Deposits

copper wire

Novel Sources of Critical Minerals from Porphyry Copper Deposits

  • Principal Investigator (PI): Mark Barton Director, Lowell Institute for Mineral Resources. Professor, Geosciences
  • CO-Principal Investigators: Isabel Barton, Mining and Geological Engineering, Frank Mazdab, Geosciences (GEOS), Jason Kirk (GEOS)
  • Partners: Freeport-McMoRan, Asarco, South32, Hudbay, AZGS

Porphyry copper mining moves huge masses of many critical minerals that aren’t recovered. This pilot study looks at that potential, primarily from a geological and geometallurgical perspective.

All key objectives are successfully completed: to develop and demonstrate the capacity to do critical element analyses in a variety porphyry copper-related minerals and materials environment; to expand collaborations to work on key examples in the Soutwestern United States and to develop a National Science Foundation (NSF) proposal, which we submitted on April 14, 2023, to the Geosciences Directorate “Critical Minerals” initiative.