Tracing the magmatic controls on ore fertility with Dr. David Hernández Uribe.

Tracing the magmatic controls on ore fertility: From crustal melts to porphyry copper deposits. Copper is essential for modern society, powering renewable energy technologies, electric vehicles, and electronic devices. About 75% of the world’s copper comes from porphyry copper deposits (PCDs), making their study critical for understanding and securing future resources. In this talk, I will talk about the formation of PCDs, focusing on the role of magmatic water content (H₂O), oxygen fugacity (fO₂), and differentiation depth in controlling their fertility. I will describe how thermodynamic modeling can be used to explore the conditions under which PCD-forming magmas are generated. I will then highlight a field case from PCDs in Sonora, Mexico, where geochemical constraints on fO₂ and H₂O have been used to track the fertility of PCD-related magmas, demonstrating how these modeling approaches can be applied to real-world deposits. Overall, this talk will illustrate how integrating modeling, geochemistry, and field observations can provide new insights into the processes that control PCD formation.