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Economic geology

Copper conundrums

Nature Geoscience volume 7, pages 10–11 (2014)Cite this article

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The metal content of magmas erupted at subduction zone arcs is thought to be derived from the mantle. A correlation between crustal thickness and copper content in arc magmas worldwide, however, reveals an important role for the crust in the upper plate.

Most of the world's copper ore deposits are associated with porphyries — rocks with a unique texture generated by the crystallization of magma at shallow depths. Porphyries can occur in any type of volcanic environment, but copper-bearing porphyries are exclusively found in subduction zone volcanoes. This implies that water derived from the water-rich subducting slab plays a role in copper enrichment1,2. However, it has been unclear whether the metal content of copper-porphyry deposits is mostly imparted by a source in the mantle3,4,5 or a source in the crust of the overriding plate1,6,7. Writing in Nature Geoscience, Massimo Chiaradia8 reports a statistical assessment of the geochemical signature of magmatic rocks from arcs worldwide and shows that copper enrichment is inversely correlated with the thickness of the overriding plate, suggesting that the crust plays an important but counterintuitive role in copper-porphyry ore formation.

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Figure 1: Schematic illustration of thin island and thick continental arcs.

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  1. Cin-Ty A. Lee is in the Department of Earth Science, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA,

    Cin-Ty A. Lee

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Correspondence to Cin-Ty A. Lee.

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Lee, CT. Copper conundrums. Nature Geosci 7, 10–11 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2039

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