Rocks left alongside mines and pits could hold a modern mother lode
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2013/07/22/miners-old-tailings-may-have-hidden-value.html Miners’ old tailings may have hidden value By Tracie Cone ASSOCIATED PRESS July 22, 2013 [image / U.S. Department of Energy Ames Laboratory http://www.dispatch.com/content/graphics/2013/07/22/mine-tailings-0722-art-gtinsj74-1mine-tailings-discoveries-jpeg-07924-jpg.jpg Department of Energy scientists Ryan Ott, left, and Ross Anderson examine a magnesium ingot as part of a project to reclaim rare earth elements, which are needed for many electronic products. ] SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Across the West, early miners digging for gold, silver and copper had no idea that one day something else very valuable would be buried in the piles of dirt and rocks they tossed aside. There’s a rush in the U.S. to find key components of cellphones, televisions, weapons systems, wind turbines, MRI machines and the regenerative brakes in hybrid cars, and old mine tailings might be the answer. They might contain a group of versatile minerals the periodic table calls “rare earth elements.” “Uncle Sam could be sitting on a gold mine,” said Larry Meinert, director of the mineral resource program for the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va. The USGS and Department of Energy are on a nationwide scramble for deposits of the elements that make magnets lighter and bring color to the touch screens of smartphones in order to break the Chinese stranglehold on those supplies. They were surprised to find that the critical elements could be in plain sight in piles of rubble otherwise considered eyesores and toxic waste. A past era’s junk could turn out to be this era’s treasure. “Those were almost never analyzed for anything other than what they were mining for,” Meinert said. “If they turn out to be valuable, that is a win-win on several fronts — getting us off our dependence on China and having a resource we didn’t know about.” The 15 rare earth elements were discovered long after the gold rush began to wane, and demand for them took off only over the past 10 years as electronics became smaller and more sophisticated. They begin with atomic-number-57 lanthanum and end with 71 lutetium, a group of metallic chemical elements that are not rare as much as they are just difficult to mine because they occur in tiny amounts and are often stuck to each other. “The reason they haven’t been explored for in the U.S. was because as long as China was prepared to export enough rare earths to fill the demand, everything was fine — like with the oil cartels. When China began to use them as a political tool, people began to see the vulnerability to the U.S. economy to having one source of rare-earth elements,” said Ian Ridley, director of the USGS Central Mineral and Environmental Resources Science Center in Colorado. Two years ago, China raised prices. Neodymium, used to make Prius electric motors stronger and lighter, went from $15 a kilogram in 2009 to $500 in 2011, while dysprosium oxide used in lasers and halide lamps went from $114 a kilogram in 2010 to $2,830 in 2011. Also about that time, China cut off supplies to Japan, home of the maker of the Prius, in a dispute over international fishing territory. That’s when the U.S. government went into emergency mode and sent geologists to hunt for new domestic sources. At the University of Nevada-Reno and the Colorado School of Mines, USGS scientists used lasers to examine extensive samples of rocks and ore collected across the West during the gold rush days by geologists from Stanford University and Cal Tech. “If we could recycle some of this waste and get something out of it that was waste years ago that isn’t waste today, that certainly is a goal,” said Alan Koenig, the USGS scientist in charge of the tailings project. One sample collected in 1870 from an area near Sparks, Nev., where miners had searched for a viable copper vein, has shown promise and has given researchers clues in the search for more. They have found that some rare-earth elements exist with minerals they had not previously known occur together. “The copper mine never went into production, but now after all of this time we’ve analyzed it and it came back high with indium, which is used in photovoltaic panels. It never economically produced copper, but it gives us insight into some associations we didn’t previously recognize,” Koenig said. Koenig and his colleagues are working to understand the composition of all of the nation’s major deposits sampled over the past 150 years. In some cases, the mines were depleted of gold or copper, but the rocks left piled alongside mines and pits could hold a modern mother lode. “We’re revisiting history,” he said. [© 2013 The Dispatch Printing] http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130722/odd-news/lode-of-promise-in-gold-rush-junk.478984 Lode of promise in gold rush junk July 22, 2013 - The 15 rare earth elements were discovered long after the gold rush began to wane, ... "The reason they haven't been explored for in the US was because as long as China was prepared to export enough rare earths to fill the demand, everything was fine - like with the oil cartels," said Ian Ridley, ... "When China began to use them as a political tool, people began to see the vulnerability to the US economy to having one source of rare earth elements." http://mb.com.ph/News/World_News/23375/Gold_rush-era_discards_could_fuel_cellphones,_TVs#.Ue0jl71WmMo Gold rush-era discards could fuel cellphones, TVs AP July 22, 2013 - ... USGS and DoE ... were surprised to find that the critical elements could be in plain sight in piles of rubble otherwise considered eyesores and toxic waste. One era's junk could turn out to be this era's treasure ... getting us off our dependence on China and having a resource we didn't know about." ... 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