According to Mining.com, a recent paper published in the journal Science Advances focuses on exploring the processes needed for renewable energy technologies to enrich metals that can be transported upward from the earth's deep mantle by low-temperature carbon-rich melts.

This paper details the research results of an international team led by Isra Ezad, a postdoctoral fellow at Macquarie University in Australia. The team created a small amount of molten carbonate material in a high temperature and high pressure environment similar to 90 kilometers deep in the earth's crust.

Their experiments have shown that carbonate melts can melt and carry many metals and compounds, which can provide reference information for future metal exploration.

"We know that carbonate melts can carry rare earth elements, but this research takes it one step further," Eshard said in a media statement. "We found that this carbon-containing lava can carry oxidized sulfur and melt the 'future green metals', precious and base metals in the mantle."

Most of the rocks in the earth's crust and the mantle below are composed of silicates, like lava from volcanic eruptions.

However, a small portion of these deep rocks contains small amounts of carbon and water, allowing them to melt at lower temperatures than other parts of the mantle.

These carbonate melts efficiently melt and transport base metals such as nickel, copper and cobalt, precious metals such as gold and silver and sulfur oxides, and the metals are enriched to form deposits.

"Our findings suggest that the sulfur content of carbonate melts is more and wider than previously thought, and may play a more important role in the enrichment of metal deposits," Eshard said.

The researchers selected two natural mantle components for experiments:One mica pyroxenite from western Uganda and the other spinel lherzolite from Cameroon.

Eshard explained that thicker continental crust areas are more likely to form in older continental inland areas, where they can act as sponges, absorbing carbon and water.

"Carbon-sulfur melts appear to dissolve and enrich these metals in intermittent areas of the mantle and carry them deep into the shallower crust, where they undergo chemical reactions to form deposits," the scientist pointed out.

She believes the study shows that tracking carbonate melts can allow us to better understand large-scale metal distribution and metallogenic mechanisms over the course of Earth's history.

"As the world shifts from fossil fuels to battery, wind and solar technology, demand for these key metals has soared and finding reliable resources has become increasingly difficult," Eshard said. "These new understandings have opened up a new exploration space for us:Previously unseen deposits of base metals and precious metals in carbonate melts."

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