Mineral Systems, Earth Evolution, and Global Metallogeny

Professor David I. Groves gained his BSc Hons (1st class) and PhD from the University of Tasmania and DSc from the University of Western Australia (UWA). He has carried out geological survey mapping and has acted as an exploration consultant but has spent most of his career as a pragmatic academic in which capacity he is now Emeritus Professor at UWA, Honorary Professor at the China University of Geosciences Beijing (CUGB), and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. He has been awarded 13 medals and prizes for his research and has supervised 100 PhD and MSc students in a long career. He has benefitted from his mentors Professors Sam Carey and Mike Solomon who advised him “To disbelief if you can” and “You will never solve a problem by viewing it at too small a scale”, both the foundations of his success and advice that governments should heed! David could never have had such an eventful life without the support of his wife Suzanne and his extended family or been able to contribute to this book without input from geological colleagues, his former students, and association with Academician Jun Deng’s research group, particularly Drs Qingfei Wang and Liang Zhang, at CUGB through which he met Professor Santosh. Professor M. Santosh is a Talent Professor at the CUGB, China, Honorary Professor at the University of Adelaide, Australia and Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Science, Kochi University, Japan. His degrees are PhD (Cochin University of Science and Technology, India), D.Sc. (Osaka City University, Japan) and D.Sc. (University of Pretoria, South Africa). He is the Founding Editor of Gondwana Research as well as the founding Secretary General of the International Association for Gondwana Research. He is also the Editorial Advisor of Geoscience Frontiers and Geosystems and Geoenvironment. His research fields include global tectonics, metallogeny and life evolution in the Early Earth. He is co-author of the book ‘Continents and Supercontinents’ (Oxford University Press, 2004). He has been recipient of Thomson Reuters 2012 Research Front Award, and Thomson Reuters/Clarivate High Cited Researcher Award during the past ten years. The collaboration and partnership of Professor David Groves and Santosh have led to a series of publications related to metallogeny in relation to global tectonics as well as the book Mineral Systems, Earth Evolution, and Global Metallogeny (Elsevier, 2023).

1. Introduction 2. Representative Examples of Mineral System Models 3. Summary Mineral Systems Models for Relevant Systems 4. The Critical Role of Subduction 5. Mineral Systems, Tectonics, and the Supercontinent Cycle 6. The Anomalous Boring Billion 7. Paleoproterozoic Great Oxidation Event 8. Cambrian Explosion of Life 9. The Role of Craton and Thick Lithosphere Margins 10. Implications for Global Exploration 11. References