From AI Overview:
Rare earth minerals are a group of 17 chemically similar, soft, heavy metallic elements (15 lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium) crucial for high-tech, green energy, and defense applications. Despite their name, they are relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust but difficult to find in concentrated, economically mineable deposits.
Key Aspects of Rare Earth Minerals
The 17 Elements: These include Lanthanum (La), Cerium (Ce), Praseodymium (Pr), Neodymium (Nd), Promethium (Pm), Samarium (Sm), Europium (Eu), Gadolinium (Gd), Terbium (Tb), Dysprosium (Dy), Holmium (Ho), Erbium (Er), Thulium (Tm), Ytterbium (Yb), Lutetium (Lu), Scandium (Sc), and Yttrium (Y).
Common Sources: Key ores include bastnäsite, monazite, and xenotime, which are often found mixed with thorium or uranium.
Why They Are Important: Known as "industrial vitamins," they are essential for permanent magnets in electric vehicles and wind turbines (45% of demand), smartphones, defense systems, lasers, and consumer electronics.
Production: Although found worldwide, extraction is difficult and environmentally intensive, with China controlling approximately 70% of global mining and 87% of refined production as of 2023.
Properties: They possess unique magnetic, phosphorescent, and electrochemical properties.
They are not actually "rare," but they are rarely found in high-concentration deposits, making extraction challenging and costly.
