Ground-truthing hidden anomalies for subsurface mineralization using geochemical and copper isotope data from natural waters at Hattfjelldal, Trøndelag
This Master's project was designed for Gustav Aarup-Kristensen who started the Master's program in Earth Sciences, UiB, in fall 2024. The Master's project is given by the research group Geochemistry and geobiology.
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Project description
The demand for minerals for the green energy transition has led to an increasing interest in new methods for mineral exploration. Recent work by the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU) has developed a machine learning technique to identify hidden geochemical anomalies based on low-density geochemical surveys (Acosta-Góngora et al, 2024). Through this, several locations were identified in the area of Hattfjelldal, Trøndelag that may host previously undiscovered subsurface base-metal mineralization.
This project aims to ground-truth these geochemical anomalies using geochemical and stable copper (Cu) isotope analyses of water samples. In contrast to solid samples collected at the surface, groundwaters and streams recharge to depth and therefore have a high likelihood of interacting with buried mineralization. Stable Cu isotopes have been shown to be particularly sensitive to such subsurface water-rock interactions, as oxidation of copper-bearing sulfides by groundwaters results in a distinct shift towards higher isotope ratios (Mathur and Zhao, 2023). The amount of isotope fractionation depends on the types of ore minerals that are weathering (Mathur et al., 2014) as well as the distance to the high-Cu zone of the deposit (Mathur et al., 2013), providing a potential vector for subsurface
mineralization.
This project will be done in collaboration with Teako Minerals.
Proposed course plan during the master's degree (60 ECTS)
GEOV243 Environmental geochemistry (10 ECTS)
GEOV245 Geomicrobiology (10 ECTS)
GEOV300 Selected Topics in Geoscience (5 ECTS)
GEOV342 The geochemical toolbox (10 ECTS)
GEOV344 Geobiology and the evolution of life on Earth (10 ECTS)
Z-GEOV Field course on minerals for the energy transition (5 ECTS)
GEO-3130 Ore geology (10 ECTS, UiT)
Field-, lab- and analysis work
Water samples will be collected from relevant areas and analyzed for major and trace elements using inductivelycoupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Based on measured Cu concentrations, a selection of samples will be prepared for Cu isotope analyses using ion exchange chromatograph and multi-collector inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) at the University of Bergen. Additional analysis of solid samples (sediments, rocks) may be performed where relevant to provide a comparison against water sample data. Results will be evaluated against the anomalies predicted by NGU.