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Isotopic mapping: Unravelling the evolution of Earth's continents and their influence on mineral systems

Created 16/10/2025

Updated 16/10/2025

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Earth is the only terrestrial planet in the solar system with continents, and hence understanding their evolution is vital to unravelling what makes Earth special – our liquid oceans, oxygenated atmosphere, and ultimately, life. The continental crust is also host to all our mineable mineral deposits, and hence it has played a key role in the establishment of human civilisation. This link between the crust and human development will be even more prominent through the need for critical metals, as our society transitions toward green technologies. In this talk, we will discuss the link between the time-space evolution of the continental crust and the location of major mineral systems. By using isotopic data from micron-scale zircon crystals, we can map the crustal architectures that control the large-scale localisation of numerous mineral provinces. This work demonstrates the intimate link between the evolution of the continents, the understanding of mineral systems, and ultimately our continued evolution as an industrialised society.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title Isotopic mapping: Unravelling the evolution of Earth's continents and their influence on mineral systems
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/751bd041-b925-4764-a2e6-73982dfe6f06
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 08/04/2019
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        112.0,
        -44.0
      ],
      [
        154.0,
        -44.0
      ],
      [
        154.0,
        -9.0
      ],
      [
        112.0,
        -9.0
      ],
      [
        112.0,
        -44.0
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Isotopic mapping: Unravelling the evolution of Earth's continents and their influence on mineral systems". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/isotopic-mapping-unravelling-the-evolution-of-earths-continents-and-their-influence-on-mineral-