Metals for an Electrifying Future
There is a rapidly growing demand for the "critical metals" that are needed electronics and ultra-strong magnets but there is also a huge demand for the bronze-age staple, copper, which we need for all the transmission wires, motor windings and transformers of our electrified, low-carbon economy.
Dietmar Müller, Jo Condon, Julian Diaz, and Rohitash Chandra explain how the EarthByte research group's virtual Earth lets us look deep below the surface and travel back in time. One of its many applications is to understand where copper deposits have formed along mountain belts.
The peer-reviewed, research paper behind this article can be found here:
Worried about the side-effects of mining for copper ?
Editor: Louis Moresi