Lithospheric conductors reveal source regions of convergent margin mineral systems

As global metal demands are increasing whilst new discoveries are declining, the magnetotelluric (MT) technique has shown promise as an effective technique to aid mineral systems mapping. Several case studies have shown a spatial correlation between mineral deposits and conductors, with some showing that resistivity models derived from MT are capable of mapping mineral systems from the lithosphere to deposit scale. However, until now, the statistical significance of such correlations has not been demonstrated and therefore hindered robust utilization of MT data in mineral potential assessments. Here we quantitatively analyze resistivity models from Australia, the United States of America (USA), South America and China and demonstrate that there is a statistically-significant correlation between upper mantle conductors and porphyry copper deposits, and between mid-crustal conductors and orogenic gold deposits. Volcanic hosted massive sulfide deposits show significant correlation with upper mantle conductors in Australia. Differences in the correlation pattern between these deposit types likely relate to differences in the chemistry, redox state and location of source mineralizing fluids and magmas, and indicate signatures of mineral system processes can be preserved in the crust and mantle lithosphere for hundreds of millions of years. Appeared in Scientific Reports volume 12, Article number: 8190 (2022), 17 May 2022