Syracuse University researcher develops model to predict the amount of copper deposits in the earth’s crust

Syracuse University researcher Bruce H. Wilkinson and his research partner Stephen E. Kesler from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, developed a way to estimate the total amount of copper ore deposits in the Earth’s crust by looking at the age of the rock formations in which the copper ore is contained. Their work was published in the March 2008 issue of Geology. 

“This research is an outgrowth of other work we have been doing on the lifecycle of rock deposits in the earth’s crust,” says Wilkinson, an Earth Sciences research professor in The College of Arts and Sciences.  “Granite and associated copper ore deposits form deep within the earth’s crust and are “middle aged” (geologically speaking) before reaching the earth’s surface through mountain uplift erosion. The model predicts the vertical migration of the copper deposits through the earth’s crust over time and provides an estimate of the number and distribution of copper ore deposits in the subsurface”.

The model enabled these scientists to determine that most of the copper deposits now exposed at the earth’s surface are about 7 million years old, and that the vast majority of all such deposits (62 percent) have been destroyed through the normal geological processes of uplift and erosion.  Of deposits remaining in the crust, only about 1.2 percent are close enough to the surface to be accessible by current or future mining operations.  However, that still leaves enough accessible copper to supply the world for approximately 5,500 years, the scientists say.