Critical Minerals in Ores (CMiO) database
<p>Critical minerals are commodities essential to modern industrial and strategic technologies and are highly vulnerable to supply chain disruption. The…
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U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2025–3002 Version 1.2, May 2025 Critical Minerals in Ores (CMiO) Database Background image by pinkrabbit, Adobe Stock, AI generated, used with permission. Mineral Resources Program Prepared in collaboration with the Geological Survey of Canada and Geoscience Australia ATLANTIC OCEAN ARCTIC OCEAN INDIAN OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN PACIFIC OCEAN EXPLANATION Erosional Supergene Magmatic Magmatic hydrothermal Basin chemical Basin hydrothermal Basin evaporative Volcanic basin hydrothermal Metamorphic hydrothermal Regional metasomatic Base map from Esri and its licensors, copyright 2022 Robinson (world) projection World Geodetic System of 1984 Co In Ga Ge Nb Se Sn Pt Re Te Zn 10,000 1,000 Figure 1. Schematic global distribution of Critical Minerals in Ores database samples, colored by deposit environment classification of Hofstra and others (2021). Future updates could fill data gaps for specific deposit environments, groups, and types. An interactive map is available by accessing the QR code or this link: ://portal.ga.gov.au/persona/cmmi. Figure 2. Radar plot of abundances of select critical minerals in deposit environments using the same color scheme as figure 1. The values are shown on a log scale relative to the element’s abundance in the Earth’s crust (Wedepohl, 1995). Primary Uses of Select Critical Minerals Cobalt (Co): Rechargeable batteries and superalloys Gallium (Ga): Integrated circuits and optical devices like light-emitting diodes (LED) Germanium (Ge): Fiber optics and night vision applications Indium (In): Mostly used in liquid crystal display (LCD) screens Lithium (Li): Mostly in batteries Niobium (Nb): Mostly in steel alloys Platinum (Pt) group elements (PGEs): Catalytic agents Rare earth elements (REE): Batteries, electronics, magnets, communicaton, and medical technologies Rhenium (Re): Lead-free gasoline or petrol and superalloys Selenium (Se): Glass pigment and solar cells Tellurium (Te): Steelmaking and solar cells Tin (Sn): Solder, tin plating, alloys, superconducting magnets, LCD screens Zinc (Zn): Galvanized steel, alloys, alkaline batteries (modified from Kelley, 2020) A Global Geochemical Database to Assess Primary and Byproduct Critical Mineral Potential Critical minerals are commodities essential to modern industrial and strategic technologies and are highly vulnerable to supply chain disruption. The Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative (CMMI) is a collaboration among the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Geological Survey of Canada, and Geoscience Australia that aims to deepen global understanding of where critical minerals are located (Kelley, 2020; Emsbo and others, 2021). A key output of this initiative is the Critical Minerals in Ores (CMiO) database that is advancing our collective understanding of critical minerals distributions (fig. 1; Champion and others, 2021). For instance, publicly available data on the concentrations of many critical minerals are sparse because these commodities can only be produced in small, yet essential, quantities compared to the primary commodities like copper and zinc (for example, fig. 2). The CMiO database helps bridge this gap by offering high-quality, multielement geochemical data from a wide variety of critical mineral-bearing deposits around the world. Importantly, it uses a novel consensus deposit environment, group, and type classification scheme developed by the agencies (Hofstra and others, 2021) that allows comparisons among ore deposits from different regions. The CMiO database contains geochemical data for more than 20,000 samples from more than 100 deposit types comprising 10 deposit environments.
Contributing Data to the CMiO Database The CMMI is soliciting high-quality geochemical data from ore deposits from academia, government, and industry to increase spatial coverage and deposit type representation in the database. Samples should be geologically well characterized and analyzed by modern geochemical methods. The submission guide and data sheet template are available by accessing the QR code or this link: ://doi.org/10.26186/149408. Quantifying Critical Mineral Abundance in Different Deposit Types Porphyry Deposits Porphyry copper-molybdenum-gold deposits are a subset of the porphyry deposit group in the magmatic hydrothermal deposit environment (Hofstra and others, 2021). These deposits are a major source of copper and molybdenum globally, supply nearly 90 percent of tellurium for the world, and have the potential to supply other critical minerals as byproducts, such as selenium, rhenium, and platinum group elements. The CMiO database enables abundances of these critical minerals to be compared among deposits, and can inform assessments of these vital byproduct minerals in this deposit environment (fig. 3). Regional Metasomatic Deposits The genetic origins and classification of iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) and iron-oxide-apatite (IOA) deposits remain hotly debated and are grouped in the regional metasomatic deposit environment in the CMiO database. They are subdivided into the hematite-dominant and magnetitedominant deposit types (Hofstra and others, 2021). Analysis of the data seems to confirm these classifications and shows different critical mineral enrichments among individual deposit types within this environment. For example, magnetite-dominant IOCG deposits are more likely to be enriched in cobalt, whereas light and heavy REE are more enriched in IOA and hematite-dominant IOCG deposits (fig. 4). The CMiO database can thus help assess the byproduct critical mineral potential for IOCG-IOA deposits in the United States and elsewhere. References Cited Champion, D., Raymond, O., Huston, D., VanDerWielen, S., and others, 2021, Critical Minerals in Ores—Geochemistry database: Geoscience Australia, accessed January 2025 at ://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/145496. Emsbo, P., Lawley, C., and Czarnota, K., 2021, Geological surveys unite to improve critical mineral security: Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, v. 102, accessed October 2024 at ://doi.org/10.1029/2021EO154252. Hofstra, A., Lisitsin, V., Corriveau, L., Paradis, S., and others, 2021, Deposit classification scheme for the Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative Global Geochemical Database: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2021–1049, 60 p., accessed October 2024 at ://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20211049. Kelley, K.D., 2020, International geoscience collaboration to support critical mineral discovery: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2020–3035, 2 p., accessed July 2020 at ://doi.org/10.3133/fs20203035. Wedepohl, K.H., 1995, The composition of the continental crust: Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, v. 59, no. 7, p. 1217–1232, accessed January 2017 at ://doi.org/10.1016/0016-7037(95)00038-2. ://doi.org/10.3133/fs20253002 ISSN 2327-6932 (online) ISSN 2327-6916 (print) Figure 3. Box-and-whisker plots of selenium, tellurium, and rhenium abundance in mineralized samples from U.S. porphyry copper-molybdenum-gold deposits included in the Critical Minerals in Ores database. Boxes show the interquartile range (IQR; 25th to 75th percentile) of the data, and whiskers show the range of 1.5 times IQR. Dashed lines indicate average crustal abundance based on values from Wedepohl (1995). Concentration (parts per million) Note: Filled circles denote average values Selenium (Se) Tellurium (Te) Average crust Rhenium (Re) Morenci (Arizona); 6,470 Pebble (Alaska); 7,510 Bingham Canyon (Utah); 1,640 Bagdad (Arizona); 1,600 Bisbee Queen (Arizona); Yerington (Nevada); 928 Deposit ore tonnage (million metric tons) Bisbee Queen (Arizona) Bisbee Queen (Arizona) Yerington (Nevada) Bisbee Queen (Arizona) Morenci (Arizona) Figure 4. Box-and-whisker plots of cobalt, copper, scandium, lanthanum, and dysprosium abundance in mineralized samples from iron-oxide-copper-gold and iron-oxide-apatite deposits included in the Critical Minerals in Ores database. Boxes show the interquartile range (IQR); whiskers show the range of 1.5 times IQR. Deposit ore tonnage indicated in million metric tons. Salobo (Brazil): 1,926 Pea Ridge (United States): 85 Olympic Dam (Australia): 11,680 Kirunavaara (Sweden): 2,000 Ernest Henry (Australia): 166 Note: Filled circles denote average values 100,000 10,000 1,000 Cobalt (Co) Copper (Cu) Scandium (Sc) Lanthanum (La) Dysprosium (Dy) Magnetite-dominant IOA Magnetite-dominant IOCG Hematite-dominant IOCG Concentration (parts per million) Average crust For more information, contact: Geological Survey of Canada Natural Resources Canada 601 Booth Street Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E8 cmmi@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca Geoscience Australia Sir Harold Raggatt Drive Symonston ACT 2609 clientservices@ga.gov.au Mineral Resources Program U.S. Geological Survey 913 National Center Reston, VA 20192 minerals@usgs.gov Geoscience Australia has tried to make the information in this product as accurate as possible. However, it does not guarantee that the information is totally accurate or complete. 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