Currently, 60% of the world’s copper production comes from porphyry copper deposits, often significantly enriched by surface weathering. This paper uses new global datasets and previous work to review the critical processes required for porphyry copper formation and supergene enrichment. Porphyry copper formation requires a subducting arc to create a source magma which traverses a thickened crust subject to high exhumation rates during formation, ranging from 100’s to 1,000’s m/m.y. High exhumation rates potentially trigger magma decompression, causing fluid release, opening fluid pathways along faults and lineaments and/or facilitating telescoping, whereby early porphyry-style mineralization is overprinted and enriched by high-sulfidation mineralization at shallower crustal levels. Later supergene enrichment of the deposit requires precipitation rates > 120 mm/yr and exhumation rates ranging from 10’s to 100’s m/m.y. This allows copper sulfide sources to be continually refreshed for weathering but restricts the amount of erosion. Using the Central Andes, one of the world’s most critical porphyry copper provinces, the understanding gained from analyzing these global databases can explain the temporal and spatial pattern of known deposits. These constraints were used to inform mappable target criteria and data required for mineral exploration at a range of different scales, from orogen (> 100,000 km²), to terrane (100,000–1,000 km²) to arc (1,000–100 km²). The results can be used to help illustrate and inform global exploration strategies for supergene-enriched porphyry copper deposits.

目前，全球 60% 的铜产量来自斑岩铜矿床，这些铜矿床往往因地表风化而显着富集。本文使用新的全球数据集和之前的工作来回顾斑岩铜形成和表生富集所需的关键过程。斑岩铜矿的形成需要俯冲弧来产生源岩浆，该岩浆穿过加厚的地壳，在形成过程中会受到高折返率的影响，范围从 100 到 1,000 平方米/米。高折返率可能会触发岩浆减压，导致流体释放，打开沿线的流体通道。断层和地貌和/或促进伸缩，由此早期斑岩型矿化被较浅地壳水平的高硫化矿化覆盖和富集。矿床后期的表生富集需要降水率 > 120 毫米/年，折返率范围为 10 至 100 米/年。这使得硫化铜源能够不断更新以应对风化，但限制了侵蚀量。利用世界上最重要的斑岩铜省之一的中部安第斯山脉，通过分析这些全球数据库获得的了解可以解释已知矿床的时间和空间模式。这些约束用于为不同尺度范围内的矿产勘探提供可制图的目标标准和数据，从造山带（> 100,000 km ² ）到地体（100,000–1,000 km ² ）再到弧形（1,000–100 km ² ）。研究结果可用于帮助说明和指导全球富表生斑岩铜矿床的勘探策略。