| Abstrakt: |
Systematic studies conducted under the 5-year IGCP project No.354 "Economic Superaccumulations of Metals in the Lithosphere" revealed that: (1 ) deep lithospheric structures have played a major role in the genesis and distribution of giant and supergiant concentrations of metals in the crust, and (2) that large ore clusters formed over long periods of time by successive stages of mineralization. Indications have also been found that sublithospheric levels of the Earth, as well as certain global forces may also have influenced the uneven distribution of mineral resources on our planet. A review of the main data generated by the IGCP-354, jointly with examples from the preceding project of the IAGOD Commission on Tectonics of Ore Deposits have been used to introduce a new international workshop "Deep Structure of the Earth and Concentration of Metals in the Lithosphere: A Geodynamic Approach". This workshop, held at the U.S. Geological Survey in September 2001, was a joint effort of the IAGOD Commission on Tectonics of Ore Deposits and the Geodynamics Branch of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The purpose of this workshop was to establish a link with the current researches of geophysicists studying the sublithospheric levels of the Earth, especially the differential rotation of the inner core, processes at the core-mantle boundary, interaction between the solid earth and liquid outer core possibly leading to deformations in the lower mantle, and related subjects. |
