Chapter 10 - Major Patterns of Economic Deposit Concentration within Earth's Crust

Abstract

Publisher Summary The chapter discusses the issue of the origins of commercial deposits and the major patterns of their spatial and temporal distribution from the position of the most general physical theory of the Earth's global evolution. Major patterns of ore matter concentration in the Earth's crust and the very origin of the economic deposits (especially endogenous deposits) are closely associated with the global evolution processes. On the other hand, the exogenically emerged commercial deposits are strongly related also with the evolution of the global climate. At the same time, the identified patterns in the spatial and temporal distribution of commercial deposits can often serve as reliable indicators of the very process of the Earth's evolution. For this reason, numerous metallogenic concepts were mostly based on the once reigning theoretical ideas about the evolution of geotectonic and petrologo-geochemical processes. After the emergence of the global evolution theory based on plate tectonics, it became possible to discuss all these complex problems from a unified theoretical position. In-depth analysis showed that metallogenic epochs are inimitable moments in the planet's evolution. This is understandable as, thermodynamically, Earth is an open dissipative system irreversibly losing its endogenous energy to outer space. Therefore, its evolution must be irreversible.