British Columbia’s currently operating mines are benefiting from increased demand and profitability, with copper and gold prices rising considerably on world markets.The climb in commodities prices have resulted in a dramatic increase in mineral exploration spending in B.C.
Over the past 20 years, geologists have been researching the application of indicator minerals as a mineral exploration tool. Indicator minerals are minerals whose presence provides clues into the possible location of a deposit if a mineral species of interest, such as copper, gold, or diamonds.
Not all metal deposits have igneous origins- sedimentary deposits can also be a valuable source of many metals, including copper. While sedimentary copper deposits share the feature of a sedimentary origin- there are many different types of sedimentary copper deposits- each with distinct characteristics.
Nickel-copper sulfide deposits are the source for most of the world’s nickel, and magmatic platinum group metal deposits. These deposits have significant economic value.
SedEx deposits are a major source of minerals including copper, silver, gold and tungsten- and the single most important source of lead and zinc.
Arguably, copper skarns are the world’s most abundant skarn type. The largest copper skarns are associated with mineralized porphyry copper plutons. These deposits can exceed 1 billion tonnes of combined porphyry and skarn ore, with more than 5 million tonnes of recoverable copper.
Russia is endowed with rich mineral deposits, and produces significant amounts of platinum group metals, nickel, gold, and copper. Russia contains 139 copper deposits, about 10 percent of the world’s copper reserves. In 2009, it ranked seventh in annual copper production.
Zambia is most famous for its reserves of copper and cobalt, however, the country is also a miner producer of selenium and sliver. Gold, platinum, and palladium are also produced as a by-product of copper mining. Surging copper prices from 2004 to the present day has rapidly rekindled international interest in Zambia's copper sector.
Iron oxide copper gold ore deposits are important and highly valuable concentrations of copper, gold and uranium. With an tendancy for being tremendous in size, relatively simple metallurgy and relatively high grade IOCG deposits can produce extremely profitable mines.
Although not the world’s primary source of copper, volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits or VMS, are an important source of the metal. These deposits are also a significant supplier of zinc, lead, gold and silver.
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