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Goodbye China? Minami Tori island off Japan finds huge treasure of rare earth materials

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A rare form of mud found in a Japanese island may turn out to be a treasure for the future scientists and it consists of huge quantity of rare earth materials, scientists say.

With an estimated 16 million tonnes of mud, the massive, “semi-infinite” stores of valuable rare earth minerals in the island off Japan shores in the Pacific Ocean could alter global economy, said Japanese researchers. The huge patch of mineral-rich deep sea mud lies near Minamitori Island, 1,200 km off the coast of Japan.

Even though Minamitori Island is thousand miles away from the Japanese capital, it is still technically a part of Tokyo, in the village of Ogasawara, and falls within Japan’s economic borders or EEZ.

Rare earth minerals, used in smartphones and other high-tech devices like missile systems, radar devices and hybrid vehicles and China has been the only exporter and has long controlled these exports to Japan.

Yttrium, one of such metals can be used to make camera lenses, superconductors and cell phone screens and this is available in huge quantity in Japan now. The 16 million tonnes of mud in Japan’s island could contain 780 years worth of yttrium, 620 years worth of europium, 420 years worth of terbium and 730 years worth of dysprosium, said Japanese scientists.

Upbeat scientists declared that the island “has the potential to supply these materials on a semi-infinite basis to the world.”

Such concentration of rare earth material in one island is really rare, according to the US Geological Survey, which says though these minerals are relatively abundant, they have “much less tendency to become concentrated in exploitable ore deposits.” The new find and its huge scale is makes Japan new source of rare earth materials now.

Currently, only China holds a tight grip on the rare earth minerals — controlling about 95 per cent of global rare earths production as of 2015, which has caused concern for Japan and other countries which rely on China’s tight control over the price and availability.

Now that Japan has complete economic control over the new supply, the Japanese scientists are confident that the island could be exploited soon.​

How mineral-rich Japan can dictate world now?

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China’s minister visited Tokyo for an economic dialogue last week not without a valid reason. Japan no longer needs China’s rare earth materials as it found a treasure of an island in its own backyard and the supply is semi-inifinite. This is what’s called turn-around in destiny.

Some precious “rare-earth” metals such as yttrium is vital to manufacture lasers, magnets, ceramic capacitors, oxidative agents, high-temperature superconductors, stainless steel, and PET scanners. Scientists in their new report on the island Minami-Tori-shima, also known as Marcus Island, said the mud is saturated with rare-earth elements and yttrium, abbreviated REY. Though Yttrium is not always classified as a rare-earth element, it is extremely rare.

The enriched mud has Yttrium and HREE (heavy rare earth elements), which accounted for 44 percent of the total amount of REY available in the region. It means Japan can supply Yttrium for 780 years, Europium (Eu) for 620 years, Terbium (Tb) for 420 years and Dysprosium (Dy) for the next 730 years, without any interruption.

What has puzzled scientists was the huge area with a high concentration of rare-earth elements, which in itself is very rare. The so-called rare-earth elements (REY) are not common on Earth and paleontologists believe that they could have been brought to earth from asteroids.

For instance, cerium is the 25th most abundant element within the Earth’s crust and is more prevalent than copper but widespread and never concentrated at one place, making it rare. In all, 17 different rare-earth elements are currently being mined in China, with Australia as the second-largest worldwide supplier.

It was in 2011 that research reports indicated huge REY-rich mud with mineral concentrations up to 2,230 ppm spread across the Pacific Ocean. In 2013, a report zeroed in on Japan’s isolated Marcus Island or Minamitori island which showed rich deposits of up to 5,000 ppm REY existed around the small coral atoll. The richest samples were up to 0.66 percent rare earth oxides, compared with a typical concentration of 0.05 to 0.5 percent for Chinese mines, said the report.

This latest survey of Minamitori island showed the total amount of rare earth material which can be potentially mined is more than 16 million tons of rare-earth oxides with an average 964 ppm, making it a semi-infinite basis to the world. The study found that the grains of rare earth material could be filtered by size, making it far easier to mine.

With its technological superiority, Japan is expected to mine the resources efficiently and keep it as a long-term resource and dilute china’s superiority in the field of rare earth materials.


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