Researchers in Oxford are looking to a Caribbean volcano to find metals used in batteries and electric cars as they look for a new energy source.
Volcanoes emit copper, lithium, gold, and many other 'critical' metals in their volcanic plumes, in amounts comparable to daily global mining quantities, experts believe.
Fluids called geofluids are found beneath dormant volcanoes, and recovering the minerals dissolved in them, at the same time as generating power, has the potential to make geothermal a viable renewable energy source.
This approach could potentially provide a significant portion of critical metals like lithium, needed for batteries.
The Oxford Martin Programme on Rethinking Natural Resources, part of the University of Oxford, is investigating a volcano on Montserrat in the Caribbean.
Researchers are digging around the volcano to analyse geofluids, aiming to create a globally-applicable blueprint.
Professor Jonathan Blundy, from the programme, said: "We are using Montserrat as an example, as a blueprint, and we'll understand more about what we can do in Montserrat but also what we could do in other places.
"So I think maybe not in my lifetime, but in my children's lifetime, what we call the saline geofluids - the resource landscape that is getting metals and energy out of underground fluids - will feature very extensively in resources of the future.
"So we're really at the beginning of something that will grow very large, I think, simply because we can do it with much less surface disturbance, no big holes in the ground."
Geothermal energy, heat generated within the Earth, is a renewable resource.
David Pyle, professor of earth sciences, who is also part of the programme, said: "I think part of what this project is looking at is saying 'well have we got new ways of tapping into resources by looking for metals that are already dissolved in fluids'.
"And those are fluids that we might be bringing to the surface to generate power and then recirculate those fluids back into the interior - so it's kind of a greener way of mining for resources.
"But it has prospects of making geothermal energy an economically viable resource."
Prof Pyle suggests the findings from Montserrat could unlock untapped resources in the UK, in places like Cornwall where it is possible to drill a couple of kilometres deep and access hot liquids rich in lithium.
He added: "The reasons for doing the work have changed in a way because we now want to reduce our reliance on burning hydrocarbons.
"And so once again, looking at what’s in the fluids that are coming out of these systems could be very important."
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