Science Alert April 16, 2018
Rare-earth minerals used in electronic devices are plentiful in layers of the Earth’s crust. There are only a few economically viable areas where they can be mined and they’re generally expensive to extract. Researchers in Japan have found a deposit of rare-earth minerals about 1,150 miles (1,850 km) southeast of Tokyo. It’s within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, so the island nation has the sole rights to the resources there. There’s enough yttrium to meet the global demand for 780 years, dysprosium for 730 years, europium for 620 years, and terbium for 420 years. China has tightly controlled much of the world’s supply of these minerals for decades. Japan now has the opportunity to control a huge chunk of the global supply… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ