Geochemical and metallogenic provinces: a discussion initiated by results from geochemical mapping across northern Fennoscandia

Abstract The concept of metallogenic province has won general acceptance in economic geology. It is agreed that metallogenic provinces offer good opportunities for exploration of new ore deposits. The concept of geochemical province is also established, but its exact meaning is disputable. In this paper, geochemical province is used as an abnormal spatial distribution of an element or element combination in a particular sample type as measured by a particular analytical technique. The practical consequences of this concept of geochemical provinces in mineral exploration seem not to have been fully utilized, although geochemical and metallogenic provinces could only be different manifestations of the same regional features. The location of geochemical provinces should be of greater importance in exploration than the location of metallogenic provinces, simply because a geochemical province can be identified early in an exploration program, while a metallogenic province cannot be defined until a number of ore discoveries has already been made. We have compared metallogenic provinces with geochemical provinces obtained by regional geochemical mapping in Fennoscandia (mainly data from the Nordkalott Project) and other places such as England, Wales, Germany and Alaska in order to study to what degree large-scale geochemical dispersion patterns can be associated with clusters of economically interesting mineral deposits. It is concluded that metallogenic provinces lie within or coincide with a number of geochemical provinces, some of which may have causal relationships with the ore deposits. It can be assumed that an enormous hierarchy of large and small geochemical provinces exist at the earth's surface. The main features of this system would be detectable by worldwide low-density geochemical mapping. Such mapping should be performed in order to shorten the time lapse between possible rises in the demand of certain raw materials and their supply. Worldwide geochemical mapping would also contribute to a better understanding of major geochemical processes of the Earth and provide baselines for environmental research.