Beyond mining -

doi:10.1038/ngeo1291

Global demand for raw materials is at an all-time high, and rising. As mining companies scale up their operations in response, society needs to develop strategies to keep damage to a minimum.

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Coal's true cost -

doi:10.1038/ngeo1136

The deaths of birds have become a rallying point against the proliferation of wind farms. Yet the loss of human life in mines is rarely linked with coal as an energy source.

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Deep sea vent diversity -

Alexandra Witze

doi:10.1038/ngeo1407

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Sputnik special: Mining the Moon? -

Ninad Bondre

doi:10.1038/ngeo.2007.18

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Economic geology: Gilded by earthquakes -

Dave Craw

doi:10.1038/ngeo1775

Gold is often deposited in Earth's crust by fluids that percolate through rock fractures. Earthquakes cause rock fractures to expand rapidly and could cause the fluids to evaporate, triggering almost instantaneous gold deposition.

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Economic geology: Volatile destruction -

Bruno Scaillet

doi:10.1038/ngeo908

Direct evidence for the role of volatiles in magmatic ore formation has been elusive. Magma degassing at Merapi volcano in Indonesia is found to be directly linked to the selective leaching of metals from sulphide melts that ultimately form ore deposits.

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Giant uranium deposits formed from exceptionally uranium-rich acidic brines -

Antonin Richard, Christophe Rozsypal, Julien Mercadier, David A. Banks, Michel Cuney, Marie-Christine Boiron & Michel Cathelinea

doi:10.1038/ngeo1338

The Athabasca Basin, Canada, is home to some of the world's largest uranium deposits. Analysis of preserved ore-forming fluids and experimental measurement of uranium solubility in analogous solutions show that the giant deposits could have formed relatively rapidly from extremely uranium-rich brines under acidic conditions.

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High gold concentrations in sulphide-bearing magma under oxidizing conditions -

Roman E. Botcharnikov, Robert L. Linnen, Max Wilke, Francois Holtz, Pedro J. Jugo & Jasper Berndt

doi:10.1038/ngeo1042

Magma transports metals to the Earth's surface to form ore deposits, but only sulphide-undersaturated magmas were thought to be capable of generating large amounts of ore. Laboratory experiments indicate that large volumes of gold ore can also be generated by sulphide-saturated magma, if the redox conditions of the magma are suitable.

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Magmatic-hydrothermal origin of Nevada's Carlin-type gold deposits -

John L. Muntean, Jean S. Cline, Adam C. Simon & Anthony A. Longo

doi:10.1038/ngeo1338

During the Eocene, profuse magmatism and hydrothermal activity in the Great Basin of western North America produced Earth's second largest concentration of gold in Nevada. An integration of mineral analyses, experimental data and age and isotope data suggests a magmatic source for these deposits.

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Sulphide magma as a source of metals in arc-related magmatic hydrothermal ore fluids -

Olivier Nadeau, Anthony E. Williams-Jones & John Stix

doi:10.1038/ngeo899

The metal content of ore deposits formed during subduction-zone volcanism was thought to be established when the ore fluid separates from the parent magma. Analyses of metal concentrations in erupted melts and the volcanic gases emitted after an eruption in Indonesia reveal that metals can be added to the ore fluid later, during mixing with separated melts.

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