Stay tuned for Ocean Mining 2.0 -- Japanese authors Kato, et al, report in Nature Geoscience about Deep-sea mud in the Pacific Ocean as a potential resource for rare-earth elements... "World demand for rare-earth elements and the metal yttrium -- which are crucial for novel electronic equipment and green-energy technologies -- is increasing rapidly [...] We estimate that an area of just one square kilometre, surrounding one of the sampling sites, could provide one-fifth of the current annual world consumption of these elements. Uptake of rare-earth elements and yttrium by mineral phases such as hydrothermal iron-oxyhydroxides and phillipsite seems to be responsible for their high concentration. We show that rare-earth elements and yttrium are readily recovered from the mud by simple acid leaching, and suggest that deep-sea mud constitutes a highly promising huge resource for these elements."Thanks again to Calestous Juma for spotting this!
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