Huge rare earth deposits found in Pacific

[Relique du Madde]

Mineral acquisition filmed by Cameron

Remember what happened during the last mineral acquisition documentary James Cameron filmed?

Knowing our luck, this mineral deposit is located underneath a colony of Sea Monkeys who have an army of advanced cyborg mill robots and backdoor access to all of the world's supercomputers.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Strip mining is still strip mining even at 6000 feet!

 

[JoeGKushner]

U.S. Geologists Uncover Staggering $1 Trillion Cache of Unmined Mineral Resources in Afghanistan (Updated) | Popular Science

I thought that the whole Afganistant Rare Earth thing was common knowledge? That's just one of the articles. Thought it happened some time ago. Doesn't seem to have made a difference.

 

[Relique du Madde]

I thought that the whole Afganistant Rare Earth thing was common knowledge? That's just one of the articles. Thought it happened some time ago. Doesn't seem to have made a difference.

That's because [Jedi Mind Trick] "We were not in afganistan to search for Rare Earth Minerals." [/Jedi Mind Trick]

See how that works?

However more likely, we allowed China take contracts.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I buy a lot of minerals out of Afghanistan- gemstones, mostly- so I had been aware of that one. But the problem remains the same for the rare earths as it does for the gemstones- the chaos within Afghanistan makes it difficult to get the stuff out. And this is worse news for something like rare earths.

A tourmaline mine, for instance, can be profitably run on a very small scale. It can be profitable with a small staff of miners, administrators and security working a single site.

Rare earths, OTOH, require a lot of heavy machinery, and are usually strip mined, and nobody is going to want to invest in that kind of venture with the kind of sociopolitical tumult that is going on right now.

Still, if the Afghanis can get their act together, it very well could be a boon to that nation akin to what the major oil producers bring in.