GEO-CM: Prospecting for critical element deposits: an interdisciplinary approach using experimental geochemistry and field-informed modeling of sediment transport

GEO-CM：关键元素矿床勘探：利用实验地球化学和沉积物输运现场知情建模的跨学科方法

• 批准号: 2327940
• 负责人: Dustin Trail
• 金额: $ 61.53万
• 依托单位: University of Rochester
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-01 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2327940&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: GEO; CM; Prospecting; critical; element

Critical minerals like cobalt, niobium, and tin are essential resources needed for modern technologies. These technologies include smartphones, batteries, electric vehicles, and satellites. Critical minerals are a key resource needed to move to a sustainable energy economy. However, the demand for these minerals could soon exceed the available supply. Additionally, there is a risk of disruptions in the international supply chain. To lower these risks, which carry significant economic and national security implications, the goal of this proposal is to increase geoscientists' abilities to find more of these critical mineral resources in the Earth. This project will create new tools to analyze river sediment with two main objectives. First, the work will determine whether critical minerals might be upstream that have not yet been discovered. Second, the project aims to locate places upstream where these minerals are concentrated. This project will provide education and training on critical mineral research to a PhD student, a postdoc, and multiple undergraduate students. A critical mineral module will make up approximately 2-3 weeks of lectures for an undergraduate Earth Materials course. The PIs will also partner with a local youth leadership and workforce development program in Rochester, NY. The goal of the partnership is to provide experience in environmental research and careers for students from underrepresented groups over the summer. Imagine collecting a scoop of sand from a river; hidden in that single scoop lies information about the rocks in the entire drainage basin. Analysis of the sediment grains may reveal the presence of a critical element of interest in a proxy mineral, indicating a source rock of possible interest somewhere in the area. This project explores two questions: Does the trace element concentration within minerals in sediment fingerprint a potentially fertile igneous source enriched in the critical element of interest? If it does, can the transport history of the sediment be modeled using physical properties of the grain such as shape and size to constrain the likely location of the fertile source that produced it? The goal of this work is to enhance prediction capabilities of undiscovered critical mineral-rich source rocks by using river sediments for prospecting by combining 1) high temperature laboratory experiments to characterize zircon, quartz, and rutile chemistry so that they can be used as “indicator minerals” for critical mineral deposits and 2) numerical modeling and field-based sediment tracer studies that will improve predictions of sediment transport distance and the location of viable critical mineral source rocks. For the first objective, the team will use experimental geochemistry to synthesize quartz, zircon, and rutile in the presence of a critical element bearing mineral. These experiments will allow the researchers to define the threshold concentrations of different critical elements in target indicator minerals that would suggest a fertile source. For the second objective, the investigators will use coupled fluid-granular numerical models to develop new statistical distributions of sediment transport distance depending on grain shape and size. The team will also use RFID-tagged rocks to track sediment transport in two natural rivers to determine how sediment size and shape affect their travel distances in natural systems. This fundamental work will set the stage for future development of a comprehensive model that predicts critical mineral source rock location from river sediment properties alone. Findings from this proposal will extend beyond mineral prospecting; developing a new view of the processes that occur during the lifetime of sediments, from birth within a rock to transport and degradation through a river system, has implications for the fundamental understanding of Earth materials and the evolution of Earth’s surface.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

钴、铌和锡等关键矿物是现代技术所需的重要资源，这些技术包括智能手机、电池、电动汽车和卫星。然而，关键矿物是迈向可持续能源经济所需的关键资源。此外，这些矿物可能很快就会超过可用供应量，为了降低这些对经济和国家安全产生重大影响的风险，该提案的目标是提高地球科学家的发现能力。更多这些该项目将创建新的工具来分析河流沉积物，其主要目标有两个：首先，该工作将确定上游是否可能存在尚未发现的地方。该项目将为一名博士生、一名博士后和多名本科生提供关键矿物研究的教育和培训，一个关键矿物模块将构成本科生地球材料课程的大约 2-3 周的讲座。 PI 还将与纽约州罗彻斯特的当地青年领导力和劳动力发展计划的目标是在夏季为来自弱势群体的学生提供环境研究和职业经验。沉积物颗粒的分析可能揭示了代理矿物中存在的重要元素，表明该地区某处可能存在重要的源岩。该项目探讨了两个问题：沉积物指纹中矿物质内的微量元素浓度可能是如果确实如此，是否可以使用颗粒的物理特性（例如形状和大小）来模拟沉积物的运输历史，以限制产生它的肥沃源的可能位置？这项工作的目的是通过利用河流沉积物进行勘探，结合 1) 高温实验室实验来表征锆石、石英和金红石化学，从而提高对未发现的关键富含矿物源岩的预测能力，以便将它们用作关键矿床的“指示矿物”和2）数值模拟和基于现场的沉积物示踪研究，将改进沉积物迁移距离和可行的关键矿源岩位置的预测。对于第一个目标，该团队将使用实验地球化学来确定。在含有关键元素的矿物存在下合成石英、锆石和金红石，这些实验将使研究人员能够确定目标指示矿物中不同关键元素的阈值浓度，这将表明第二个目标的丰富来源。研究人员将使用流体-颗粒耦合数值模型来根据颗粒形状和大小开发沉积物迁移距离的新统计分布。该团队还将使用带有 RFID 标签的岩石来跟踪两条天然河流中的沉积物迁移，以确定沉积物的大小和形状。这项基础工作将为未来开发一个综合模型奠定基础，该模型仅根据河流沉积物特性来预测关键矿源岩的位置，该模型的研究结果将超出矿物勘探的范围。生命周期中发生的过程沉积物从岩石中的诞生到通过河流系统的运输和降解，对地球物质的基本理解和地球表面的演化具有重要意义。该奖项是 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力评估进行评估，被认为值得支持。优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。