MINERAL DEPOSITS RESEARCH REQUIRED FOR THE NEXT NATIONAL MINERAL RESOURCE ASSESSMENT: A COLLABORATIVE OPPORTUNITY

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) supports mineral deposits research to provide the technical and scientific underpinning for mineral resource assessments at global, regional, and national scales. Demand for metallic and nonmetallic mineral commodities is increasing dramatically, raising questions about future access to these materials. In support of policy development concerning availability of commodities critical to the US economy, the USGS Mineral Resources Program (MRP) plans to update its 1995 national assessment of undiscovered mineral deposits of Au, Ag, Cu, Pb, Zn. National-scale geologic, geochemical, geophysical, and mineral deposit databases have been systematically compiled by MRP since the previous national mineral resource assessment. The next assessment of undiscovered mineral deposits in the US, scheduled to begin in 2012, will include at least fifteen mineral commodities essential to the Nation's economic and political security. Targeted commodities include Cu, Pb, Zn, Mo, Be, Ni, Co, Cr, rare earth elements, platinum group elements, potash, phosphate rock, Ti and TiO₂, Au, and iron ore.

The MRP plans to produce an updated probabilistic domestic resource assessment that is robust and objective, and is useful to a variety of users including geoscientists, land managers, and policy makers. Preparing for this assessment requires developing or updating as many as 50 mineral deposit models to account correctly for the range of deposit types that supply the targeted commodities and to investigate their potential to occur domestically. Success will require deposit models that include comprehensive descriptive information about each deposit type, robust global grade-tonnage data, and geoenvironmental information. Research to improve assessments for concealed mineral resources and research on mineral environmental assessment applications on regional and national scales is being conducted in concert with the mineral deposits research. These activities will be the primary emphasis of both internal USGS MRP research and collaborative projects supported by the Mineral Resources External Research Program (MRERP) between now and 2012.