Professor David I. Groves gained his BSc Hons (1st class) and PhD from the University of Tasmania and DSc from the University of Western Australia (UWA). He has carried out geological survey mapping and has acted as an exploration consultant but has spent most of his career as a pragmatic academic in which capacity he is now Emeritus Professor at UWA, Honorary Professor at the China University of Geosciences Beijing (CUGB), and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. He has been awarded 13 medals and prizes for his research and has supervised 100 PhD and MSc students in a long career. He has benefitted from his mentors Professors Sam Carey and Mike Solomon who advised him “To disbelief if you can” and “You will never solve a problem by viewing it at too small a scale”, both the foundations of his success and advice that governments should heed! David could never have had such an eventful life without the support of his wife Suzanne and his extended family or been able to contribute to this book without input from geological colleagues, his former students, and association with Academician Jun Deng’s research group, particularly Drs Qingfei Wang and Liang Zhang, at CUGB through which he met Professor Santosh.Professor M. Santosh is a Talent Professor at the CUGB, China, Honorary Professor at the University of Adelaide, Australia and Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Science, Kochi University, Japan. His degrees are PhD (Cochin University of Science and Technology, India), D.Sc. (Osaka City University, Japan) and D.Sc. (University of Pretoria, South Africa). He is the Founding Editor of Gondwana Research as well as the founding Secretary General of the International Association for Gondwana Research. He is also the Editorial Advisor of Geoscience Frontiers and Geosystems and Geoenvironment. His research fields include global tectonics, metallogeny and life evolution in the Early Earth. He is co-author of the book ‘Continents and Supercontinents’ (Oxford University Press, 2004). He has been recipient of Thomson Reuters 2012 Research Front Award, and Thomson Reuters/Clarivate High Cited Researcher Award during the past ten years. The collaboration and partnership of Professor David Groves and Santosh have led to a series of publications related to metallogeny in relation to global tectonics as well as the book Mineral Systems, Earth Evolution, and Global Metallogeny (Elsevier, 2023).

"The book was written by and for people actively working in mineral exploration, so the reader should be prepared for extensive use of geologic language. It is well organized and clearly written, with a wealth of useful information for the intended audience. More than 100 figures (maps, schematic cartoons, tables, etc.) are excellent, providing a lot of detail that cannot easily be shown in the text. There are 35 pages of references for those wanting to follow up on the original research.... I appreciated Elsevier’s e-book format, as references and referrals to previous chapters and figures are highlighted as links, making it easy to check those items and immediately get back to the text." — William R. Green, The Leading Edge, February 2025

• 1. Introduction2. Representative Examples of Mineral System Models3. Summary Mineral Systems Models for Relevant Systems4. The Critical Role of Subduction5. Mineral Systems, Tectonics, and the Supercontinent Cycle6. The Anomalous Boring Billion7. Paleoproterozoic Great Oxidation Event8. Cambrian Explosion of Life9. The Role of Craton and Thick Lithosphere Margins10. Implications for Global Exploration11. References