WhenTue, 10 January, 19:30 – 20:30
WhereEarth Sciences Lecture Theatre, Wills Memorial Building, Park Street, Bristol ()
DescriptionDr. Frances Cooper, Copper Porphyry deposits in Chile
Tectonics, Climate, and Copper
in the Central Andes
The Atacama Desert, on the western side of the Central Andes in northern Chile is one of the driest places on Earth and is thought to have been dry since at least the middle Miocene. The region is also notable for its abundance of giant copper deposits, many of which have been enriched by the interaction with groundwater when the climate was wetter. It has been suggested that the onset of aridity in the region was caused by uplift of the Andes, which blocked moisture travelling from the east. However, others have suggested that the arid climate could have been established much earlier, long before Andean uplift.
In my talk, I will explore the relationship between Andean uplift, aridity, and the end of copper enrichment in northern Chile, which is important not only for our understanding of tectonic and climatic processes, but also for mining company exploration strategies, and where they might seek to find the next “big one”.
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