ALBERT

Description: Several resources and standards for indexing food descriptors currently exist, but their content and interrelations are not semantically and logically coherent. Simultaneously, the need to represent knowledge about food is central to many fields including biomedicine and sustainable development. FoodON is a new ontology built to interoperate with the OBO Library and to represent entities which bear a “food role”. It encompasses materials in natural ecosystems and food webs as well as humancentric categorization and handling of food. The latter will be the initial focus of the ontology, and we aim to develop semantics for food safety, food security, the agricultural and animal husbandry practices linked to food production, culinary, nutritional and chemical ingredients and processes. The scope of FoodON is ambitious and will require input from multiple domains. FoodON will import or map to material in existing ontologies and standards and will create content to cover gaps in the representation of food-related products and processes. As a robust food ontology can only be created by consensus and wide adoption, we are currently forming an international consortium to build partnerships, solicit domain expertise, and gather use cases to guide the ontology’s development. The products of this work are being applied to research and clinical datasets such as those associated with the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study which examines the causal factors of asthma and allergy development in children, and the Integrated Rapid Infectious Disease Analysis (IRIDA) platform for genomic epidemiology and foodborne outbreak investigation.

Description: 〈span〉〈div〉Abstract〈/div〉Better tools are needed to map the thermal structure of ore deposits. Here, carbonate clumped isotope thermometry is applied for the first time in epithermal, skarn, and carbonate-hosted deposits to identify the conditions involved in metal transport and deposition. Clumped isotope temperature calibrations were tested by measurement of carbonates from three geothermal fields in the Taupo volcanic zone, New Zealand, that record growth temperatures between 130° and 310°C. Results for modern Taupo volcanic zone calcites were paired with known fluid 〈span〉δ〈/span〉〈sup〉18〈/sup〉O values and these indicate precipitation in equilibrium with produced geothermal waters. Measurements carried out at the Waihi low sulfidation deposit in New Zealand, the Antamina polymetallic skarn in Peru, and the Mount Isa sediment hosted Pb-Zn and Cu deposit in Queensland, Australia, demonstrate that clumped isotope values are sensitive to temperature gradients defined using other methods. At Waihi, an andesite-hosted deposit, temperature controls the majority of variation in carbonate mineral 〈span〉δ〈/span〉〈sup〉18〈/sup〉O. At Mount Isa, ~300° to 400°C temperatures were recorded in a 1.5 Ga orebody, which are consistent with fluid inclusion values, highlighting the longevity of clumped isotope archives in dolomite minerals. Collectively, these results demonstrate the potential for clumped isotopes to delineate the heat footprint around deposits that contain carbonates, and to more effectively disentangle magmatic and meteoric fluid 〈span〉δ〈/span〉〈sup〉18〈/sup〉O signals.〈/span〉

Description: 〈span〉〈div〉Abstract〈/div〉Carbonate-hosted hydrothermal deposits typically show narrow visible mineralogical and textural alteration halos, which inhibit exploration targeting. In contrast, hydrothermal modification of the country rock’s stable isotope composition usually extends far beyond the limited visible alteration. Hence, stable isotope studies should be an effective tool to aid exploration for carbonate-hosted deposits. Here we present new insight into the development of a large stable isotope alteration halo based on 910 O and C isotope analyses of carbonate veins and hydrothermally altered limestone hosting the Cinco de Mayo Pb-Zn-Ag (Au, Cu) carbonate replacement deposit (CRD), in Chihuahua, Mexico. Our results demonstrate that stable isotope alteration is consistent with reactive, magmatic fluid flow into unaltered limestone and represents a powerful tool for the characterization of these hydrothermal ore systems. Synmineralization veins are texturally and isotopically distinct from those formed during pre- and postmineralization diagenesis and fluid flow and show distinct gradients along the direction of mineralizing fluid flow: this appears to be a promising exploration vectoring tool. Downhole variations in wall-rock isotope values reveal aquifers and aquicludes and outline the principal hydrothermal flow paths. Furthermore, wall-rock 〈span〉δ〈/span〉〈sup〉18〈/sup〉O〈sub〉VSMOW〈/sub〉 systematically decreases toward mineralization from ~23‰ to 〈17‰ over a distance of ~10 km, providing another vectoring tool. The extent of the stable isotope alteration halo likely reflects the overall fluid volume and areal extent of a fossil hydrothermal system, which may be expected to scale with the mineral endowment. This suggests that constraining the size, shape, and degree of isotopic alteration has direct application to mineral exploration by outlining the system and indicating the potential size of a deposit.〈/span〉

Description: 〈span〉〈div〉Abstract〈/div〉Geometallurgy has developed since the 1970s, primarily on metallic ore operations. In parallel, industrial mineral operations have been optimized through detailed deposit knowledge and market development, without making specific reference to geometallurgical concepts. The Norwegian mining industry is dominated by industrial mineral and construction material operations, and, in this paper, key differences between the industrial mineral and the metallic ore sectors are investigated, along with their influence on the development and the use of economic block models and optimization methodologies. Further, the key levers and factors (mining method selection, processing route, scale, sequence, and cutoff policy) for value creation in industrial mineral operations are discussed, along with how and to what extent geometallurgy has been used. It is concluded that the five key levers cannot be used in industrial minerals operations as effectively as they are used in metallic ore operations. In industrial minerals, in situ strength variations are an important parameter in estimating key performance indicators such as recovery and product quality. When modeling the spatial variation in rock strength potential, additivity issues must be resolved by investigating the process the raw material is exposed to. The Norwegian industrial mineral sector has been using elements of geometallurgy but is facing unresolved issues related to strength variations and the use of measurement while drilling data.〈/span〉