July 4, 2011 (Source: Montreal Gazette) — China’s monopoly over rare-earth metals could be challenged by the discovery of massive deposits of these high-tech minerals in mud on the Pacific Ocean floor, a study released Sunday suggests.
China accounts for 97 per cent of the world’s production of 17 rareearth elements, which are essential for electric cars, flat-screen TVs, iPods, superconducting magnets, lasers, missiles, night-vision goggles, wind turbines and many other advanced products.
These elements carry exotic names such as neodymium, promethium and yttrium, but, in spite of their “rare-earth” tag, are in fact abundant in the planet’s crust.
The problem, though, is that land deposits of them are thin and scattered about, so sites which are commercially exploitable or not subject to tough environment restrictions are few. As a result, the 17 elements have sometimes been dubbed “21st-century gold” for their rarity and value.
Production of them is almost entirely centred on China, which also has a third of the world’s reserves. Another third is held together by former Soviet republics, the United States and Australia.
But a new study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, points to an extraordinary concentration of rare-earth elements in thick mud at great depths on the Pacific floor.
Japanese geologists studied samples from 78 sites covering a major portion of the centre-eastern Pacific between 120 and 180 degrees longitude. Drills extracted sedimentary cores to depths that in place were more than 50 metres below the sea bed.
More than 2,000 of these cores were chemically tested for content in rare-earth elements.
The scientists found rich deposits in samples taken more than 2,000 kilometres from the Pacific’s midocean ridges.
The material had taken hundreds of millions of years to accumulate, depositing at the rate of less than half a centimetre per thousand years.
At one site in the central North Pacific, an area of a single square kilometre could provide one-fifth of the world’s annual consumption of rare metals and yttrium, says the paper.
Lab tests show the deposits can be simply removed by rinsing the mud with diluted acids, a process that takes only a couple of hours and, say the authors, would not have any environmental impact as long as the acids are not dumped in the ocean.
A bigger question is whether the technology exists for recovering the mud at such great depths -4,000 to 5,000 metres -and, if so, whether this would be commercially viable.
Lead author Yasuhiro Kato, a professor of economic geology and geochemistry at the University of Tokyo, said the response from mining companies was as yet unknown, “because nobody knows the presence of the (rare-earth) rich mud that we have discovered.
“But about 30 years ago, a German company succeeded in recovering deep-sea mud from the Red Sea. So I believe positively that our deep-sea mud is technologically developable as a mineral resource.”
How Are ‘Rare-earth’ Metals Found on the Ocean Floor Related to Deep-Sea Mud?
The relationship between rare-earth metals found on the ocean floor and deep-sea mud is critical for exploring the depths of deepsea mud. These metals are often embedded in the mud, making it essential for scientists to study and extract them to better understand their potential environmental impact and commercial value.