Research on the metallogenic mechanism of deep sea sedimentary mineral resources:Review and outlook
Deep sea sedimentary mineral resources mainly include cobalt-rich crusts,polymetallic nodules and REEs-rich sediments,of which the former two are rich in cobalt,nickel,copper,rare earth elements(REEs)and other critical metal elements,and the latter is rich in medium and heavy REEs,which are potential strategic mineral resources in the future.Crusts,nodules,and REEs-rich sediments are distributed on the surface of seamounts,seabed and deep sea sediments respectively,and the mineralization processes are related,and sea water plays an important role in the mineralization process.The critical metals such as cobalt,nickel,copper and REEs haven't formed independent minerals.Previous studies mainly focus on the separate research on single mineral resource,which limited overall understanding of deep-sea mineralization processes.On the basis of reviewing the progress and existing problems of domestic and foreign scholars on the spatial distribution,occurrence status,enrichment mechanisms,and controlling factors of three deep-sea sedimentary mineral resources above,this paper proposes to focus on ore-forming elements,to conduct the study on process of"source-migration-enrichment"of the ore-forming elements under multi-sphere interaction and the spatiotemporal coupling mechanism of sedimentary mineral resources in"seamountain-basin system"under the guidance of Earth system science,which provides theoretical guidance for deep-sea metallogenic prediction.
cobalt-rich crustspoly-metallic nodulesREEs-rich sedimentsmetallogenic mechanismreview and outlook