Top miners, academics partner to seek new ways to discover sedimentary copper

Getech, a locator of subsurface resources, announced it has joined a consortium of academia and industry to speed up the understanding of copper deposits required for the discovery critical metal needed for renewable technologies.

The three-year Kupferschiefer project, which launched in the first half of 2023, aims to revisit archive geological data and reinterpret it using petroleum and mineral system approaches, creating maps of mineral prospective areas within the Central European Basin.  

The project, led by the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Exploration Targeting (CET), has partnered with the University of Warsaw and First Quantum Minerals, Teck Resources and BHP.

The consortium is taking a holistic mineral system approach to sedimentary copper discovery, Getech said, adding that this requires an understanding of the combination of geological processes that are required to form and preserve sedimentary deposits.

Getech is using its proprietary gravity and magnetics data, as well as Globe earth model and spatial analytical expertise, to provide the consortium with clear and realistic insights into the nature and structure of the subsurface, it said.

Copper is a highly efficient conduit, which is used in decarbonisation and electrification strategies to generate power from solar, hydro, thermal and wind energy, as well as transport and store it. 

With the looming world-wide copper deficit, sedimentary hosted copper deposits offer a promising and more sustainable alternative for meeting the increasing global demand for this energy transition critical mineral.

These deposits account only for 20-25% of the world’s total copper production today and offer several advantages compared to non-sedimentary alternatives such as porphyry deposits found in igneous settings, including sedimentary-hosted copper deposits, being globally more widely distributed, present ESG opportunities by promoting equitable economic distribution and reducing transport emissions.

These deposits typically require less energy-intensive processing methods.

Another critical aspect of sedimentary hosted copper deposits is their significant cobalt content. Approximately 80% of the world’s cobalt, a key component in batteries, comes from these deposits.

“Increasing quantities of copper are needed to support the world’s decarbonisation and it is more important than ever that we understand the depositional environments to help us identify new, innovative ways of finding this critical resource,” Howard Golden, senior advisor, Critical Minerals at Getech and technical advisor for the CET, said in a news release.

“The process and data from this project can be replicated globally for the exploration of copper and subsurface resources including lithium, potash, phosphates and even gold and naturally occurring hydrogen,” Golden said.  

“It’s a potentially revolutionary approach to finding resources.”