Tectonic and climatic controls on porphyry copper enrichment in the Central Andes

Porphyry copper deposits (PCDs) are the world's principal commercial source of copper. Formed from metal-bearing hydrothermal fluids associated with granitic batholiths, they are typically found in convergent plate margin settings, such as northern Chile in the Central Andes. Although these systems begin their life a few kilometres deep in the crust, erosion and tectonic activity exhume them to the surface, where they interact with oxygenated groundwater. Chemical reactions between sulphide minerals and this oxygenated water create acid that leaches the copper and reprecipitates it in an enriched "supergene blanket" of ore. This process can more than double the copper content of a deposit, making supergene zones a primary target for mineral exploration. Northern Chile hosts some of the largest and richest supergene blankets in the world (notably the huge Chuquicamata and Escondida deposits) and yet the area lies in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth. The onset of this dry climate is thought to relate to uplift of the Andes mountains, which created a rain shadow on their western side. This raises fundamental questions about how and when supergene enrichment occurred, when and why it stopped, and how regional changes in tectonics, climate, sedimentation, and hydrology might have affected mineralisation. Project goals and methods This PhD project will investigate the roles of tectonic uplift, exhumation, and climate on supergene enrichment along the western Andean margin in northern Chile. In this area, extensive deposition of fluvial gravels proximal to major sites of mineralisation offers an opportunity to place spatial and temporal constraints on patterns of exhumation, transportation, and deposition of igneous material related to PCDs. Project goals include: (1) Conduct a detrital provenance study of gravels using U-Pb geochronology and (U-Th)/He thermochronometry. (2) Use numerical modelling to constrain the exhumation history of igneous clasts in the gravels, from emplacement at depth to exhumation and fluvial transportation on the surface. (3) Relate patterns of exhumation and deposition to regional tectonic and climatic constraints. (4) Determine how these patterns may affect the formation and preservation of enriched PCDs.