Minerals
Our planet provides our essential minerals and we study how they can be produced with minimal impact.
We are dedicated to the responsible extraction of our planets mineral resources, which focuses on limiting the environmental impacts of mining, effective remediation of mines, and increased recovery of the available resource.
Mineral raw materials underpin all aspects of modern life, and their use is growing with increasing population and prosperity. Minerals are used for fertilisers, aggregates and other raw materials for the construction of cities and infrastructure, as well as metals and raw materials for manufacturing of the products we use every day including essential electronic equipment and renewable energy technologies.
As non-renewable resources, mined with public consent, the challenge of supplying society’s requirements responsibly is enormous. The University became the first higher education institution in the UK to adopt a formal conflict minerals policy.
Read our policy on conflict materials
Current projects
Lithium for Future Technology (LiFT)
The LiFT project will investigate all aspects of this lithium cycle, and develop a new quantitative understanding of the processes linking all the deposit types that will underpin the search for new, sustainable Li resources. The LiFT consortium includes researchers from the British Geological Survey, the Natural History Museum, and the universities of Edinburgh, Exeter, and Southampton, together with an international group of project partners.
Anoxic transition metal isotope geochemistry
This Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) funded project uses experimental results to identify whether the iron and copper isotope compositions of natural sulfide materials reflect solely the composition of the materials from which they formed, or whether their composition is also determined by the formation processes itself.
The results will be of fundamental importance to isotope geochemists and applicable directly to studies of metal isotopes in a wide variety of natural systems of all geological ages.
Publications
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(2021) New mechanisms for invisible gold enrichment in Fe-sulfides in the Liaodong Peninsula, NE China: In situ evidence from the Xiaotongjiapuzi deposit. Gondwana Research *Authors: Sun, G., Zeng, Q., Zhou, L., Hollis, S.P., Zhou, J-X., Chen, K |
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(2021) A distal, high-grade Irish-type orebody: petrographic, sulfur isotope, and sulfide chemistry of the Island Pod Zn-Pb Orebody, Lisheen, Ireland. Economic Geology *Authors: Oran, A.L., Hollis, S.P., Menuge, J.F., Piercey, S.J., Boyce, A.J., Johnson, S., Guven, J., Turner, O. |
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(2020) The use of operationally-defined sequential Fe extraction methods for mineralogical applications: A cautionary tale from Mössbauer spectroscopy. Chemical Geology, 543, 119584. *Authors: Hepburn, L.E., Butler, I.B., Boyce, A.,Schröder, C. |
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(2020) 4D history of the Nimbus VHMS ore deposit in the Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia. Precambrian Research, 337, 105536. *Authors: Barrote, V., Tessalina, S., McNaughton, N., Jourdan, F., Hollis, S.P., Ware, B., Zi, J-W. |
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(2020) Imaging the subsurface using induced seismicity and ambient noise: 3-D tomographic Monte Carlo joint inversion of earthquake body wave traveltimes and surface wave dispersion. Geophysical Journal International, 222, 3, 1639–1655. *Authors: Zhang, X., Roy, C., Curtis, A., Nowacki, A., Baptie, B. |
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| (2020) Surge of ore metals in seawater and increased bio-activity: a tracer of VHMS mineralization in Archaean successions, Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia. Mineralium Deposita.
*Authors: Barrote, V.R., Tessalina, S.G., McNaughton, N.J., Evans, N.J., Hollis, S.P., McDonald, B.J. |
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* Edinburgh Research Explorer (ERE) is the University's research information system and is managed by Library and University Collections.