EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE
Mineral Raw Materials Needed
Aaron W. Johnson, MEM-2783
awj@aipg.org
A few weeks ago, I spent an afternoon installing a new set fog lights on my daily driver. These are not just any lights; they are LED fog lights. They’re bright, durable, and are such a step up over anything I’ve used before that I was slightly taken aback. When the snow flies this winter, I’m certain these new lights will make winter driving at night a fair bit easier. After I installed my new toys, I decided to take a closer look at what resources were required to make them. The frames were steel, requiring iron, manganese, chromium, and other alloys, along with a bit of carbon; the wiring, of course, was copper soldered together with a tin-lead alloy. The surface of the metal con- tained a bit of zinc as a rust inhibitor and the bolts used to hold the light housing in place were hardened stainless steel, likely a little molybdenum alloyed with a high carbon content steel. The LED light bulbs required some combination of rare earth elements to provide a particular ‘color’ of light. In the case of these fog lights, probably gallium indium nitride to achieve the bright white-blue color emitted by these bulbs. The lenses were made of an impact-resistant, high-density polycarbonate. Polycarbonate is the product of carbonic acid and bisphenol A. It turns out that even something simple, like an LED light, requires a complex combination of metals, non-metals, and organic compounds during its manufacture. These lights, in essence, were one example of the resource demand we humans place on Earth.
As I learned what materials were required to make a set of LED lights, I started to think about the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative, commonly referred to as Earth MRI. This initiative was initially funded during the Trump Administration and was envisioned as an expansion to the 3D Elevation Program of the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The vision was to create a partnership between the USGS, the Association of American State Geologists (AASG), and other Federal, State, or private-sector groups (e.g., univer- sities, companies that provide LIDAR services, etc.).
The reasoning? The USGS Critical Minerals Review shows that the United States is 100% dependent upon imports for 21 critical minerals commodities. We are at least 50% dependent on imports for supply of another 28 commodities. The Earth MRI program is one tool that can be used to enhance national security by either reducing our dependence on imported miner- als or by providing to decision makers an inventory of mineral potential that could be developed to minimize uncertainty in the raw materials supply chain for United States industry. Second, Earth MRI can provide funding to perform more mod- ern geological, geochemical, and geophysical investigations in areas where such efforts have never been attempted. The over- all goal is to broadly expand our knowledge of the geology of the United States and to identify those areas where the underlying
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rocks could host as-yet undiscovered critical mineral resources. In turn, these efforts can enhance our domestic mineral supply and reduce our dependence on imported minerals.
veredcritical mineral resources
The effort to broaden our knowledge of the United States mineral wealth cuts across party lines. In June, the Department of the Interior announced that, as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure law, additional funding will go to the Earth MRI program to enhance geoscience data collection, mapping, provide critical minerals. During 2022, the focus of Earth MRI will be to improve mapping of shallow and deep earth geology to better understand the distribution of resources and to provide data that will allow for responsible production and stewardship of these important raw materials.
Earth MRI is under the direction of the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program (NCGMP) and partners with the National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program to support data preservation. Under the NCGMP, mapping for Earth MRI will be conducted primarily by state geological surveys. New mapping efforts will focus on identify- ing mineral potential while providing critical support for land use decisions and identifying the potential for geologic hazards in at-risk areas. The USGS Mineral Resources Program will partner with state surveys to undertake geochemical surveys focused on geologic areas that have not been sufficiently sur- veyed in the past. The Minerals Resources Program also will design airborne geophysical surveys to assess the potential for magnetic minerals and examine airborne geochemical data as proxy indicators for the presence of radioactive minerals such as uranium and thorium in rocks and soils.
Ultimately, Earth MRI will utilize USGS relationships with state surveys, college and university research programs, and private-sector organizations to construct a state-of-the-art mapping program and develop data that could identify as-yet unexploited deposits of critical minerals. If society deems that a switch to a lower carbon energy future is necessary, an under- standing of United States mineral resources will be critical to that effort. Our mineral future is one that is of interest to all Americans, regardless of our geologic focus or our political leanings. Without mineral raw materials, it will be impossible to maintain a robust, modern, forward-looking society. To learn more about the state of critical mineral resources in the United States, check out the 2021 USGS Critical Minerals Review:
I wish each of you a healthy and happy fall.
Aaron
www.aipg.org
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