Sustainable development and the transition to a clean-energy economy drives ever-increasing demand for base metals, substantially outstripping the discovery rate of new deposits and necessitating dramatic improvements in exploration success. Rifting of the continents has formed widespread sedimentary basins, some of which contain large quantities of copper, lead and zinc. Despite over a century of research, the geological structure responsible for the spatial distribution of such fertile regions remains enigmatic. Here, we use statistical tests to compare deposit locations with new maps of lithospheric thickness, which outline the base of tectonic plates. We find that 85% of sediment-hosted base metals, including all giant deposits (>10 megatonnes of metal), occur within 200 kilometres of the transition between thick and thin lithosphere. Rifting in this setting produces greater subsidence and lower basal heat flow, enlarging the depth extent of hydrothermal circulation available for forming giant deposits. Given that mineralization ages span the past two billion years, this observation implies long-term lithospheric edge stability and a genetic link between deep Earth processes and near-surface hydrothermal mineral systems. This discovery provides an unprecedented global framework for identifying fertile regions for targeted mineral exploration, reducing the search space for new deposits by two-thirds on this lithospheric thickness criterion alone.

可持续发展和向清洁能源经济的过渡推动了对贱金属的不断增长的需求，大大超过了新矿床的发现率，因此必须大幅度提高勘探成功率。大陆的裂谷已经形成了广泛的沉积盆地，其中一些包含大量的铜，铅和锌。尽管进行了一个多世纪的研究，导致这种肥沃地区的空间分布的地质结构仍然是个谜。在这里，我们使用统计测试将沉积位置与岩石圈厚度的新地图进行比较，该地图概述了构造板块的基础。我们发现，有85％的沉积物为基础的贱金属，包括所有巨型矿床（> 10兆吨金属），都发生在厚，薄岩石圈过渡200公里之内。在这种情况下的裂谷产生更大的沉降和更低的基础热流量，扩大了可用于形成巨型沉积物的热液循环的深度范围。考虑到成矿年龄跨越了过去的20亿年，这一观察结果暗示了岩石圈长期的边缘稳定性以及深地球过程与近地表热液矿物系统之间的遗传联系。这项发现提供了一个前所未有的全球框架，可用于确定有针对性的矿物勘探的肥沃区域，仅根据岩石圈厚度标准，就将新矿床的搜索空间减少了三分之二。这一发现暗示了长期的岩石圈边缘稳定性以及深层地球过程与近地表热液矿物系统之间的遗传联系。这项发现提供了一个前所未有的全球框架，可用于确定有针对性的矿物勘探的肥沃区域，仅根据岩石圈厚度标准，就将新矿床的搜索空间减少了三分之二。这一发现暗示了长期的岩石圈边缘稳定性以及深层地球过程与近地表热液矿物系统之间的遗传联系。这项发现提供了一个前所未有的全球框架，可用于确定有针对性的矿物勘探的肥沃区域，仅根据岩石圈厚度标准，就将新矿床的搜索空间减少了三分之二。