To this day, there is a great amount of controversy about where, when and how the so-called supercontinents--Pangea, Godwana, Rodinia, and Columbia--were made and broken. Continents and Supercontinents frames that controversy by giving all the necessary background on how continental crust is formed, modified, and destroyed, and what forces move plates. It also discusses how these processes affect the composition of seawater, climate, and the evolution of life. Rogers and Santosh begin with a survey of plate tectonics, and go on to describe the composition, production, and destruction of continental and oceanic crust, and show that cratons or assemblies of cratons became the first true continents, approximately one billion years after the earliest continental crust evolved. The middle part of the book concentrates on supercontinents, beginning with a discussion of types of orogenic belts, distinguishing those that formed by closure of an ocean basin within the belt and those that formed by intracontinental deformation caused by stresses generated elsewhere. This information permits discrimination between models of supercontinent formation by accretion of numerous small terranes and by reorganization of large old continental blocks. This background leads to a description of the assembly and fragmentation of supercontinents throughout earth history. The record is most difficult to interpret for the oldest supercontinent, Columbia, and also controversial for Rodinia, the next youngest supercontinent. The configurations and pattern of breakup of Gondwana and Pangea are well known, but some aspects of their assembly are unclear. The book also briefly describes the histories of continents after the breakup of Pangea, and discusses how changes in the composition of seawater, climate, and life may have been affected by the sizes and locations of continents and supercontinents.
Mineral Systems, Earth Evolution, and Global Metallogeny provides insights into the critical parameters of Earth’s evolution, particularly in terms of thermal state, tectonics, and the atmosphere-hydrosphere-biosphere system, that control the metallogeny of the planet. World-class to giant mineral systems are described and interpreted in terms of their relationship to critical periods of change in tectonic regimes within the supercontinent cycle and evolution of the mantle lithosphere. Specific times of formation of highly anomalous giant mineral systems, such as the so-called Boring Billion, are discussed together with specific tectonic environments, such as craton edges and thick lithosphere margins. Mineral Systems, Earth Evolution, and Global Metallogeny provides an overview of how the evolution of Earth has dictated the nature and distribution of its mineral resources that are the foundation of our modern industries and provides insights into critical parameters for conceptual exploration targeting. Researchers, academicians, undergraduate and graduate students, and geologists in the fields of economic geology, geologic exploration, mineral systems, and earth evolution will find this to be a helpful textbook in understanding the timing and distribution of the world’s major mineral deposits are related to critical parameters controlling earth evolution. Draws together aspects of each book section through summary tables Synthesizes data in each book section using summary diagrams/figures Provides continuity between related sections of the book by providing end-of-chapter bullet-point conclusions
Metallic Mineral Resources: The Critical Components for a Sustainable Earth serves the increasing interest in metal resources, especially the critical and strategic metals which are essential commodities for the green energy transition. The opening chapters introduce the heterogeneous distribution of metal resources as well as the industrial use of metals. The main chapters then work systematically through abundant metal systems, scarce critical metal systems, rare critical metal systems, trace critical metal systems, and precious metal systems. The book wraps with a close examination of temporal distribution of mineral resources and an insightful discussion of the future of mineral resources. Researchers and engineers in economic geology and mining and exploration industries will find themselves returning to this key reference for years to come. • Describes how mineable and economic metal concentrations form and are preserved in the Earth's upper crust • Explores how they are discovered by systematic mineral exploration at a variety of scales • Discusses how to educate the public on the scarcity of natural metal resources and the issues concerning the nexus between the energy transition and potential exhaustion of critical metals
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.