Over the past few weeks, China’s threat to play the “rare earths card” has generated quite a buzz and, along with growing concerns over supply chains for battery tech, has directed much-needed attention to our nation’s over-reliance on foreign mineral resources. 

As followers of ARPN know, many of these issues are in fact home-grown, as the United States is home to vast mineral resources beneath our own soil.  In fact, as North of 60 Mining News Editor Shane Lasley pointed out as part of his “Critical Minerals Alaska” feature series, several parts of which we have featured on our blog over the past few months:

“At least 29 of the 35 critical minerals and metals identified by the U.S. Geological Survey – antimony, arsenic, barite, beryllium, bismuth, chromium, cobalt, fluorspar, gallium, germanium, graphite, hafnium, indium, magnesium, manganese, niobium, platinum group metals, rare earth elements, rhenium, rubidium, scandium, tantalum, tellurium, tin, titanium, tungsten, uranium, vanadium and zirconium – are found in Alaska.”

Coming as great news to those looking to get up to speed on the critical mineral issues, North of 60 Mining News is now offering a handy new resource (pun intended):  The publication has combined the individual segments of Lasley’s feature series investigating “Alaska’s potential as a domestic source of minerals deemed critical to the United States,” into a magazine (available as pdf here), and has also dedicated a separate page on its website to “Critical Minerals Alaska.”

The pdf and print version fo the magazine feature several bonus graphics, including a rundown of all the 35 metals and minerals that made the above-referenced Critical Minerals List released by the Department of the Interior in 2018. A second two-page graphic lists the individual rare earth elements – the 15 lanthanides as well as scandium and yttrium. 

It’s going to be a hot summer on the mineral resource issue front.  If you haven’t had a chance to read Lasley’s series, be sure to bookmark the page and grab your own copy of the Critical Minerals Alaska magazine.