Ore-forming processes
Master course offered annually in the summer semester
This course is devoted to processes of metal distribution, transport and enrichment in Earth's lithosphere. We use process-oriented approach from mantle-derived mafic magmas and their metal budget through silicic magmas, their volatiles, exsolution and fractionation of metals towards a large group of hydrothermal processes and fluid-rock interaction. The course concludes with fluids generated during crustal metamorphism and in sedimentary basins, and ore-forming processes in near-surface environments (weathering and supergene mobility).
Instructors: Prof. David Dolejš, Dr. Harri Geiger
Course contents
- Introduction to ore deposits: types and processes
- Metals and sulfur in ultramafic and mafic systems
- Sulfide and oxide ore assemblages
- Magmatic fluid phase
- Mineral equilibria in hydrothermal fluids
- Hydrothermal transport of metals
- Thermodynamic models of reactive fluid flow
- Alteration geochemistry
- Fluid flow in the Earth's crust
- Metamorphic and sedimentary ore-forming fluids
- Supergene processes
- Surface processes
- Metamorphism of ore deposits
Course materials are available in the university e-learning system (ILIAS)
Recommended reading
- Barnes H.L. (ed., 1997): Geochemistry of Hydrothermal Ore Deposits. Wiley, 972 p.
- Richards J.P., Larson P.B. (eds., 1998): Techniques in Hydrothermal Ore Deposits Geology. Reviews in Economic Geology 10, 256 p.
- Ridley J. (2013): Ore Deposit Geology. Cambridge University Press, 409 p.
- Robb L. (2015): Introduction to Ore-Forming Processes (2nd edition). Wiley, 373 p.