The China Geological Survey, under the Ministry of Natural Resources, recently announced the discovery of a massive ion-adsorption rare earth deposit in Yunnan Province's Honghe region.
Source: China Science Daily
The China Geological Survey, under the Ministry of Natural Resources, recently announced the discovery of a massive ion-adsorption rare earth deposit in Yunnan Province's Honghe region. The deposit contains an estimated 1.15 million tons of rare earth resources, including over 470,000 tons of key elements such as praseodymium, neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. This is the most significant breakthrough in ion-adsorption rare earth mining in China since the first such deposit was discovered in Jiangxi in 1969 and could potentially become the country’s largest medium-to-heavy rare earth deposit.
This newly identified deposit is rich in medium-to-heavy rare earth elements, which are critical for a wide array of applications. These elements are indispensable in industries like electric vehicles, renewable energy, and advanced technologies. While China boasts abundant light rare earth resources, primarily located in Inner Mongolia’s Bayan Obo and Sichuan’s Maoniuping regions, its reserves of medium-to-heavy rare earths are relatively scarce.
Academician Hou Zengqian of the Chinese Academy of Sciences highlighted the innovative approach that led to this discovery. “The key to this breakthrough was our geochemical mapping efforts. By increasing the scale and resolution of the mapping, we were able to identify the enrichment patterns of medium-to-heavy rare earth deposits,” he explained.