Author name: Anthony E. Williams-Jones

Hydrothermal Mobilisation of the Rare Earth Elements – a Tale of “Ceria” and “Yttria”

Although the rare earth elements have been thought by many to be immobile in hydrothermal fluids, we have known since the first attempts to separate them in the early nineteenth century that they are soluble in aqueous solutions. Driven by a need to isolate individual REEs for industrial applications, and more recently to explore for them, we have started to develop an understanding of their solubility and speciation in hydrothermal fluids. This knowledge is allowing us to understand the processes that promote their transport in the Earth’s crust, their concentration, and their fractionation.

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Gold in Solution

Although gold is a noble metal and is effectively insoluble even in strong acids, we have known for nearly 500 years that it can be concentrated to mineable levels by being transported as dissolved species in crustal fluids (indeed, most economic gold deposits owe their origin to this mode of transport). From alchemy and later experimental chemistry and geochemistry, we have developed an understanding of the solubility and speciation of gold in aqueous liquids and other crustal fluids. This knowledge informs us about the processes that promote the transport of gold in the Earth’s crust, result in exploitable gold deposits and lead to the remobilization of gold in the surficial environment.

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