in press, Temporal relations between mineral deposits and global tectonic cycles: implications for prospectivity

Abstract: Mineral deposits are heterogeneously distributed in both space and time, with variations reflecting tectonic setting, evolving environmental conditions, as in the atmosphere and hydro-sphere, and secular changes in the Earth’s thermal history. The distribution of deposit types whose settings are tied to plate margin processes (e.g. orogenic gold, volcanic-hosted massive sul-phide, Mississippi valley type Pb–Zn deposits) correlates well with the supercontinent cycle, whereas deposits related to intra-cratonic settings and mantle-driven igneous events, such as Ni–Cu–PGE deposits, lack a clear association. The episodic distribution of deposits tied to the supercontinent cycle is accentuated by selective preservation and biasing of rock units and events during supercontinent assembly, a process that encases the deposit within the assembled supercontinent and isolates it from subsequent removal and recycling at plate margins. Gold Open Access: This article is published under the terms of the CC-BY 3.0 license. The regional framework of mineral deposits and mineral provinces provides fundamental informa-tion essential for successful long-term exploration and discovery. Critical data that can be gleaned from regional studies include stratigraphic, struc-tural and tectonic controls and geophysical, geo-chemical and isotopic data, all of which constrain the setting, extent and age of a mineral province and focus exploration on the location of individual deposits. Equally important and perhaps less well understood are the broad-scale processes associated with the development of continental lithosphere and their control on mineral deposit type and dis-tribution. It has long been recognized that the dis-tribution of deposit types is related to tectonic setting, for example, gold in orogenic settings and clastic-dominated Pb–Zn ores in extensional set