Intellectual Merit. Mineral resources have always been an essential foundation of human civilization. Despite uncertain economic times for much of the world, prices for critical minerals continue to remain high as they are depleted by mining and as discovery of new resources becomes increasingly difficult. Even with greater recycling and substitution, increasing demand requires that metals and other rare elements will continue to be mined from ore deposits. Such deposits can only be utilized in an environmentally responsible manner if the ore elements are highly enriched by natural chemical and physical processes. These processes operate over a great range of spatial and temporal scales from the Earth?s interior to its surface, and from the earliest geological records of the planet to the present day. The 2012 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on the Geochemistry of Mineral Deposits presents a forum to present and discuss new data and ideas on processes that control the formation and location of a wide range of mineral deposits, including precious metals, base metals, and other critical elements. Sessions will include lithospheric controls on mineral deposits, magmatic and hydrothermal processes that partition metals among various mineral and fluid phases, active hydrothermal systems as analogues to mineral deposits, and dynamic processes involved in ore genesis, including variations the fluxes and chemistry of magma and volatiles, tectonic triggers to regional ore formation, and the physical hydrogeology of hydrothermal systems. Evening sessions will focus on puzzling, controversial and commonly overlooked ore systems. These systems include the African Copper Belt in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, iron oxide-copper-gold systems, and systems that form rare earth elements, which have critical high-technology and environmental applications. Another evening session focuses on the distal expressions of large ore systems, which is of interest to private industry and government agencies involved in exploration and mineral assessments, which are important to land use decisions.
Broader Impacts. GRCs provide a unique opportunity for scientists from government, academia and industry from all over the world to meet in an informal setting. GRCs provide a level of intimacy not experienced in other conferences. Attendance is limited to 160 participants, emphasis is on discussion, and there are no concurrent sessions. Few conferences bring together such a wide range of scientists of both experience and focus, which ranges from pure, process-related research to applied research. Not all the participants specialize in ore deposits. Researchers focused on igneous petrology, aqueous and isotope geochemistry, fluid flow, and active hydrothermal systems are speaking and leading sessions. With such an intimate setting, the participants have little choice but to interact with each other during the conference. Such interactions commonly lead to unforeseen collaborations. Funds will be provided to students, post-docs, and other young investigators to assist them in attending in the meeting, thus affording them the opportunity to network with recognized experts in both academia and industry and have a say in the future directions of mineral deposit research.
The Gordon Research Conference on Geochemistry of Mineral Deposits was held at Proctor Academy Andover, New Hampshire, July 15-20, 2012. The Conference was well-attended with 150 participants (attendees list attached). The attendees represented the spectrum of endeavor in this field coming from academia, industry, and government laboratories, both U.S. and foreign scientists, senior researchers, young investigators, and students. Of the 150 attendees, 35 voluntarily responded to a general inquiry regarding ethnicity which appears on our registration forms. Of the 35 respondents, 6% were Minorities – 6% Hispanic, 0% Asian and 0% African American. Approximately 21% of the participants at the 2012 meeting were women. In designing the formal speakers program, emphasis was placed on current unpublished research and discussion of the future target areas in this field. There was a conscious effort to stimulate lively discussion about the key issues in the field today. Time for formal presentations was limited in the interest of group discussions. In order that more scientists could communicate their most recent results, poster presentation time was scheduled. Attached is a copy of the formal schedule and speaker program and the poster program. In addition to these formal interactions, "free time" was scheduled to allow informal discussions. Such discussions are fostering new collaborations and joint efforts in the field. Thank you for your support of this Conference. As you know, in the interest of promoting the presentation of unpublished and frontier-breaking research, Gordon Research Conferences does not permit publication of meeting proceedings.
