Dear Colleagues,

Demand for copper is increasing, with its consumption projected to reach up to 60 million tonnes by the middle of the century. Increasing demand, especially in the renewable energy and battery sector, with decreasing active copper mine life, highlights the importance of copper exploration and the future of the exploration industry. Methods and techniques that improve our capability of targeting and vectoring towards large scale deposits are essential, as well as the education and training of those geoscientists who will be the next generation of explorers and mining engineers. Given increasing global interaction along with the push to develop and maintain sustainable resources, it is also important to understand how these factors will affect exploration in the future.

Copper deposits range in type from large tonnage porphyry copper deposits to volcanogenic massive sulphide hosted deposits, with worldwide districts dependent upon the tectonic setting, source and host rock composition, and systematics of the hydrothermal fluids related to mineral deposition. Discovery of new deposits requires integration of techniques, including geophysics, petrophysics, lithochemistry, mineral chemistry and basic understanding of geology setting. Collaboration between specialists in these fields in both academic and industry allows for improved understanding of how features of copper deposits appear proximally and distally allowing for greater chance of exploration success.

This topic collection aims to bring together a detailed assessment of exploration techniques and methods for different copper deposit types. Ideally, these will include case studies of successes and failures to highlight key workflows and applications to improve the interpretation of data collected during exploration programs. Collectively, we hope to show the long-term impact of copper exploration, and its importance, while moving forward towards providing sustainable resources for global consumption.

Additionally, we aim to provide a section for students and junior scientists to present their work as the next generation of exploration and mining geoscientists, showcasing new and innovative techniques from improved equipment to modelling and machine learning techniques for the benefit of the exploration industry.

Dr. Robert G. Lee
Dr. Alexandra Brown
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Geosciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• copper
• mineral exploration
• mining
• economic geology
• sustainable resources
• geophysics
• geochemistry
• policy