Exploration, Geometallurgy and Geoenvironmental Assessment of Economic Deposits

Dear Colleagues,

The growing demand for base, precious and critical metals requires new approaches for the discovery, extraction, processing and geoenvironmental management of new economic deposits. Such resources may be located under cover or at greater depths and require novel or advanced exploration methods for discovery. Secondary resources of these metals may also occur in existing or historical mine waste/tailings or low-grade stockpiles/dump materials and represents a significant exploration target. Definition of economic mineral resources requires the integration of multiple techniques including new and emerging characterisation technologies which present the opportunity to collect multi-scale data, relevant across the whole mining value-chain, at early exploration stages. However, following discovery, both future and current mines face a range of engineering and processing challenges including increased depth of mine development, lower ore grades and increased mineralogical complexity, particularly for critical metals. Geometallurgy aims to fully integrate multi-scale/multi-dimensional geological information with rigorous metallurgical test work and lower-cost proxy tests to develop robust 3D/4D block models for a range of predicted variables including hardness, recovery, throughput, energy consumption and detrimental mineral distribution (e.g., talc/muscovite). Characterisation of non-grade zones using the same geometallurgical tools facilitates the development of geoenvironmental block models which map acid forming, acid consuming and metal leaching risk domains leading to enhanced waste segregation and potential reuse opportunities. In summary, a Total Deposit Knowledge (TDK) approach spans discovery, resource development, mine planning, extraction/processing and waste management/treatment and is underpinned by detailed understanding of mineralogical, chemical and textural variability across a mineral system at different scales.

This Special Issue encourages submissions relating to all aspects of exploration (geochemistry, geophysics), geometallurgy and mineral processing, geoenvironmental characterisation and waste repurposing with the aim of providing significant contributions to the sustainable development of future mineral and metal resources globally.

Dr. Nathan Fox
Dr. Anita Parbhakar-Fox
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Minerals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• exploration geochemistry
• geophysics
• mineral characterization
• geometallurgy
• ore sorting
• mineral processing
• geoenvironmental characterization
• acid mine drainage
• tailings
• reprocessing