Mineral system analysis: Quo Vadis

The concept of a mineral system was first formally introduced in 1994, two decades after the analogous petroleum system concept had been developed. Mineral systems involve: (1) tectonic events that trigger and define temporal windows for mineralising events, (2) geochemical and tectonic processes that produce ‘source regions’ often enriched in metals and hydrothermal fluids and magmas capable of mobilising these metals, (3) tectonic, sedimentary, diagenetic and structural processes that produce conduits that can act as pathways for fluid/magma flow at lithospheric, crustal, province and district scales, (4) processes that drive fluid flow, (5) focussing mechanism that concentrate (or throttle) the flow of fluids or magmas into depositional ‘trap’ sites at the camp to deposit scales, (6) chemical and physical processes that cause metal deposition at the trap site, (7) post-depositional geochemical processes that produce geochemical and geophysical features that allow later detection, and (8) processes that enhance exhumation, preservation and upgrading of mineralised material.