The proposed planning grant is designed to develop a major research proposal to characterize three of the world's largest copper deposits, located in central Chile. The deposits are higher grade, an order of magnitude larger, and distinct in alteration style relative to the well- studied copper deposits of western North America. Varied erosional levels in the three deposits provide different and complementary information about zonation and ore deposition processes. The planning grant will fund visits to each deposit in order to coordinate access and logistics, examine and collect drill core, and make preliminary assesments of the suitability of samples for chronologic and petrologic analyses. The resulting project will involve much more comprehensive field and laboratory studies, including petrology, geochronology, and fluid inclusion studies, to deduce the anatomy and origin of the deposits.
