Webinar: Predicting Porphyry Copper Through Time: Plate Tectonics, Machine Learning, and Exploration Insights

Join the Social and Environment Society and the Geoscience Society for their Webinar: Predicting Porphyry Copper Through Time: Plate Tectonics, Machine Learning, and Exploration Insights.

About this event

This event is part of our four-part webinar series ‘Critical Minerals and Materials: Insights, Innovation and Perspectives’,  showcasing Australia’s leadership across the critical minerals value chain. Each session pairs an expert speaker from the University of Sydney together with an industry practitioner, offering complementary perspectives that bridge academic research, engineering practice, and industry application.

As the second instalment of a new AusIMM–Net Zero Institute seminar series, Professor Dietmar Muller and David Turvey predicting porphyry copper through time: Plate Tectonics, Machine Learning, and Exploration Insights.

Copper underpins modern electrification and the transition to low-carbon energy. Most of the world’s copper comes from porphyry copper deposits, very large mineral systems formed when metal-rich fluids are released from magma in the Earth’s crust, commonly above subduction zones.

In these settings, one tectonic plate sinks beneath another, carrying water and other components into the mantle that promote magma generation and metal transport. Although most known porphyry deposits are relatively young, similar systems likely formed much earlier in Earth’s history but were later eroded, with their metals recycled into younger deposits.

Understanding when and where porphyry systems formed is therefore important for reconstructing Earth’s metal cycle and guiding exploration for deeply buried deposits. We have combined global plate-tectonic reconstructions spanning the past 1.8 billion years with a worldwide porphyry database and machine-learning analysis to identify the tectonic conditions most favourable for porphyry formation.

We find that porphyry systems are strongly associated with periods of intense subduction, marked by rapid plate convergence and sustained volcanic activity, which enhance magma production and the transfer of metal-bearing fluids into the crust. These relationships are used to generate maps of porphyry copper potential through time and to highlight regions that may host undiscovered deposits today.

Join us find out more!

Webinar time: 12.00pm - 1.00pm AEDT

Speaker/s

Professor Dietmar Muller

Professor of Geophysics Faculty of Science University of Sydney

Read more Hide

Prof Dietmar Müller received his undergraduate degree from the Univ. of Kiel, Germany, and his PhD in Earth Science from UC San Diego, California in 1993. After joining the University of Sydney he built the EarthByte Research Group, pursuing geodata synthesis through space and time. He is leading the construction of a Virtual Earth Laboratory, assimilating the wealth of disparate geological and geophysical data into an experimental planet. His group's virtual Earth models have numerous applications, ranging from resource exploration to linking deep Earth to surface processes. He has held an Australian Laureate Fellowship and led an ARC Industry Transformation Research Hub. Currently, his EarthByte team and industry partners are creating prospectivity maps for a range of critical minerals including copper, nickel, cobalt, chromium as well as rare Earth elements, using spatial and spatio-temporal machine learning methods. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Australian Academy of Science.

View Profile

David Turvey

Executive Director – Equant Resources P/L & SodaCo P/L Associate – Penfold Group

Read more Hide

David Turvey is a geologist with >38 years’ experience in the Australian and Asian mining industries, especially in exploration, evaluation, business development and corporate M&A activities in precious-base metals, bulk commodities, specialty metals and critical minerals. His career includes international roles for major corporations (CSR Ltd, Chevron Corporation, Normandy Mining) and executive management positions in mid-small public companies. In 1998, he founded a successful consultancy business, Equant Resources, and is associated with the Penfold Group in mineral concentrate marketing and project investment in the international mining industry. David is currently a Director of Equant Resources Pty Ltd, a private company consulting on global mineral projects /companies / industries, and a Director of SodaCo Pty Ltd a private company evaluating decarbonation process technologies. He was recently a Director of Power Minerals Limited (ASX : PNN) guiding lithium and niobium exploration in South America, Managing Director – Kogi Iron Limited (ASX : KFE) leading evaluation of the Agbaja Cast Steel Project, Nigeria and a Non-Executive Director – Southern Gold Limited (ASX : SAU) conducting gold exploration in South Korea.

View Profile