At https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00647-y … Yang Li has been the co-author of a lot of geological papers. He has another one out at Nature. The preamble is at the link above.
He earned his PhD at Durham University and he says mineral formation was much faster than the continuous process over several million years it had been thought to be – in the uniformitarian consensus. I am supposing. His geochronology data suggests that minerals can form much more quickly. In spurts, he suggests. Over tens of thousands of years rather than millions – or even less. How much less? You will have to read the full article.
He goes on to say, remarkably, that mineral zones form during these spurts and resemble, in some ways, seasonal growth rings in trees. They are, however, much smaller – only a few millimetres to micrometres wide. His current research is at Peking University and focuses on what might control the rapid and pulsing nature of mineral ore formation. As such, we may be able to identify where metals in Earth’s crustal zones are enriched enough for economic exploitation.
There is a picture of Yang Li in Hainan province, collecting granite rock samples. When magma cools and solidifies into granite, minerals such as iron and copper form from the fluids releases by the ccoling process. By analysing the minral’s rings of oxygen isotopes, he claims to be able to reconstruct the history of mineral growth, and therefore, the history of geological events that led to ore formation. He says he can also track the diffusion of elements, such as aluminium in quartz, to reconstruct the dynamics of geological events. Fascinating stuff.