Over the past three decades, I’ve developed and refined simple but powerful geochemical workflows to recognise hydrothermal alteration halos that surround mineral deposits.
These halos, some difficult to recognise during core logging and very difficult with chip drilling, can be mapped using major element whole-rock data from drillholes — revealing the footprints of buried mineral systems and helping geologists vector toward ore.
My work began with volcanic-hosted massive sulfide (VHMS) systems and the Alteration Box Plot (AI–CCPI) published in Economic Geology in 2021. More recently, I’ve developed a new method for porphyry copper systems — the PCD Alteration Plot published in Ore Geology Reviews in 2025 — which relates Cu–Au grades to alteration types, even where classic field logging struggles. My recent work on porphyry copper systems demonstrates how simple element ratio plots (AI–CCPI, Na/Al–K/Al, K/(K+Al)–K/(K+Ca)) can distinguish alteration types, unravel complex overprinting relationships, and reveal where the highest copper grades are concentrated.
The goal of Alteration Vectors is to share these methods and case studies openly, to accelerate the application of whole-rock geochemistry in mineral exploration. While the content is free, I am available for collaborative projects with mining or exploration companies using confidential drill-hole multielement datasets on old or new discoveries.
