Invited by Prof. Kezhang Qin, Director of CAS Key Lab. of Mineral Resources, Prof. Jeremy P. Richards from University of Alberta, Canada, one of the most famous experts on porphyry copper deposits, visited IGG in early July as the Thayer Lindsley Visiting Lecturer (2016) of Society of Economic Geologists.  

On July 8th Prof. Richards gave two presentations entitled “Tectonomagmatic Controls on Arc Metallogeny” and “Neotethyan Metallogeny from the Carpathians to the Himalayas”. The lectures were hosted by Prof. Kezhang Qin and more than 60 people participated, including professors and graduate students from IGG and the institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, CAS. In the talk “Tectonomagmatic Controls on Arc Metallogeny”, based on the classic subduction tectonic regime, Prof. Richards introduced and discussed the whole generating process of porphyry copper and gold deposits from deep magmatic process during the magma-hydrothermal transition process to the shallow part metal precipitation process.

He suggested that the partial melting of hydrated mantle wedge generated aquiferous, chlorine-rich, sulfur-rich, mildly-high oxygen fugacity and copper, gold rich high-Mg basalt is the original magma resource of porphyry copper and/or gold deposit. The original basaltic magma goes up (driven by buoyancy) and is trapped to the “Hot-Zone” in the boundary between mantle and crust and the occurring of so-called MASH (Melting, Assimilation, Storage, Homogenization) process is the key process to form the high-oxidized copper-rich arc magma and little reduced gold-rich post-subduction magmas.

In the talk “Neotethyan Metallogeny from the Carpathians to the Himalayas”, Prof. Richards discussed the relationships between Tethys evolution and metallogeny. Through field pictures and case studies, Prof. Richards introduced the geology, alteration mineral assemblages and mineralization types of porphyry and epithermal deposits from Carpathian in eastern Europe via Turkey, Iran, Pakistan to Tibet in Tethys metallogenic belt. 

Prof. Richards first became interested in economic geology at an early age while on walks with his grandmother across the Yorkshire Pennines, where the tailings from numerous small historical lead mines yielded fine samples of galena and other minerals for his growing rock collection. After studying geology at the University of Cambridge (1980-1983), he traveled to Canada to complete his M.Sc. degree on Keweenawan Cu deposits at the University of Toronto with Ed Spooner (1986), and then to Australia for his Ph.D. on the Porgera gold deposit with Ian Campbell at the Australian National University (1990). Following a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada with Rob Kerrich, he returned to the UK to take up a lectureship at the University of Leicester. In 1997, he returned once again to Canada for a position at the University of Alberta, where he resides today. His current research interests focus on regional tectonomagmatic controls on ore formation, and in particular subduction- and collision-related systems. This work has taken him to North and South America, the Middle East, Asia, and the southwest Pacific.

A second research interest is in the role of mining in sustainable development, a field in which, as advisor, he has graduated one Ph.D. and three master's students. Jeremy has been a member of SEG since 1983, and a Fellow since 1985; he served on SEG Council and several committees between 2003-2006, and has been an Associate Editor for Economic Geology from 1997 to 2001, and 2012 to the present. He co-edited two volumes in the Reviews in Economic Geology Series (volumes 10 and 14), and the Economic Geology 100th Anniversary Volume. He is currently chief editor of SEG Special Publication 16, which will be based on talks given at the SEG Conference in Çeşme, Turkey, in September 2016. 

Professor Jeremy Peter Richards giving a report (IGG) 

Professor Jeremy Peter Richards 

(News and photo by Chao Zhao)