Copper mineral ecology and network analysis through deep time

Abstract

Network analysis techniques (Kolaczyk, 2009; Newman, 2013) have been applied to the evaluation, characterization, and visualization of many complex, multidimensional systems, including biology Costanzo, 2016), sociology (Abraham, 2010), technology (Pagani and Aiello, 2013), and, recently, mineral ecology (Liu et al., 2017; Morrison et al., 2017). In this study, we utilize network analysis statistical and visualization techniques to further examine the chemical, geological, and temporal trends in Cu mineral occurrence on Earth’s surface.