Melting Crust Makes Rich Mineral Deposits: Geologist

TERRADAILY

Mungall suggests that rich mineral deposits occur only when a slab of ocean floor slides underneath a continent or another part of the ocean floor and melts from the heat of the earth's interior.

Toronto - Oct 18, 2002
A University of Toronto study suggests why giant gold and copper deposits are found at some volcanoes but not others, a finding that could point prospectors to large deposits of these and other valuable metals.

"There's one characteristic that is common to all of these big gold and copper deposits anywhere in the world," says Professor James Mungall of the Department of Geology.

The ocean's crust that is pushed down under a volcano starts to melt, which it doesn't normally do. His study, which appears in the October issue of Geology, examines the "Rim of Fire" volcanoes that surround the Pacific Ocean.

Mungall suggests that rich mineral deposits occur only when a slab of ocean floor slides underneath a continent or another part of the ocean floor and melts from the heat of the earth's interior.

The slab may get stuck long enough to melt or it may scrape along almost horizontally under the volcano, melting and causing the release of the metals to produce gold or copper deposits that are close enough to the surface for mining.

"These findings could help to identify regions where these rich deposits are most likely to be present," says Mungall.

The research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

TERRADAILY

Earth's New Center May Be The Seed Of Our Planet's Formation

Los Angeles - Oct 13, 2002
An odd, previously unknown sphere, some 360 miles in diameter, has been found at the bottom of the Earth. It was detected by a Harvard professor and a graduate student who patiently examined records of hundreds of thousands of earthquake waves that passed through the center of the planet in the past 30 years.

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