Critical minerals in Climax-type magmatic-hydrothermal systems

Today’s global economy is challenged to meet the growing demand for commodities used in existing and emerging advanced technologies. Critical minerals are commodities found in a wide variety of ore deposits that are vital to the economic or national security of individual nations that are vulnerable to supply disruption. The U.S. Geological Survey is striving to advance understanding of critical mineral resources by employing a Mineral Systems approach. Climax-type systems are one of 17 mineral systems currently under investigation. The aim of this work is to inventory and assess knowledge gaps on the abundance of 50 critical minerals in Climax-type systems. Here we synthesize geochemical data from ore concentrates, ore, waste, and minerals together with information on production from, and resources in, ore deposits. The goal of this work is to estimate the amount of critical minerals present in processed mine waste and unmined resources, discuss those that could potentially be recovered in the future, and identify important future areas of research.