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Ore deposits, fluid and melt inclusions, high temperature geochemistry, petrology, critical metals and sustainable resources
Lecturer in Earth Sciences - Economic Geology
Appointment: | Room: |
|---|---|
| Lecturer in Earth Sciences | Kathleen Lonsdale, 111 |
Courses Taught: | |
GEOL0025 Earth Resources and Sustainability GEOL0068 Applied Geoscience for Mineral Resources and the Environment | |
Research Group(s): | |
| Crust Dynamics & Evolution | |
Email Address: | Telephone Number: |
| k.mcfall@ucl.ac.uk | 020 3108 4333 (54333) |
Research Summary
Moving to a net carbon zero society requires a sustainable supply of earth resources, ranging from traditional metals like copper to more specialist elements like cobalt, tellurium or lithium. My research seeks to understand the processes which concentrate these elements into ore deposits in order to allow more energy and cost efficient exploration and extraction, and to help find sustainable supplies of metals critical to green technology. I do this by using a combination of field mapping, core logging, petrology, geochemistry and mineral micro-analysis.
I am particularly interested in the role of high temperature volatiles in metal transport from the mantle through to the upper crust, the behaviour of critical and precious metals in magmatic and hydrothermal systems and the interaction between volatiles and melts and how these processes affect the development of the earth system. I also specialise in fluid and melt inclusion analysis – examining bubbles of fluid or melt which are trapped in rocks in order to understand how that rock formed, the composition and temperature of ancient fluids and whether they carried metals.