Rich Rare Earth Elements Deposit Found in Americas

One of the reasons the Americas doesn’t have an established supply of rare earth elements (REEs) – metals and minerals widely used in the electronics, clean energy, aerospace, automotive and defense industries – is, until recently, nobody was really looking for them. But as interest in clean energy and electric vehicles has intensified across the globe, China’s current monopoly on these 17 elements has put other nations at a strategic disadvantage.

Rare earth elements are categorized into light elements (lanthanum to samarium) and heavy elements (europium to lutetium).

A number of companies have been exploring rare earth elements in the Americas. Most recently, U.S. Critical Materials Corp., a private rare-earth exploration and development company, announced that its Sheep Creek, Montana, deposit has the highest reported total rare-earth oxide grades (TREO) of any rare-earth deposit in the United States.

The U.S. Geological Survey will be exploring the property. Detailed geologic mapping and geochemical sampling will also be conducted to further define rare earth mineralization already identified.

“The combination of high-grade rare earths, low thorium, and multiple carbonatites is a geological phenomenon that does not exist in other reported U.S. deposits,” said USCM President Jim Hedrick, a rare earth commodity specialist formerly with the USGS.

Barb Jorgensen, editor-in-chief of EPSNews, virtually “sat down” with Hedrick and Harvey Kaye, executive director of USCM, to discuss Sheep Creek’s potential. The interview was edited for length.

EPSNews: Tell me about the Sheep Creek site.

Kaye: There are seven square miles in an area called Sheep Creek, which is in the Bitterroot Mountains, Montana, that has been known to be high in rare earths and other critical minerals. The project gained considerable momentum in October 2022, due to the fact that adits on the property, that had been sealed for the past 60 years, were opened up by our exploration team. An adit is a horizontal tunnel that has been drilled and blasted into the side of the mountain for exploration.

Geologists entered the adit and saw rich rare earth exposures and carbonatites 125 feet below the surface. They also found a vein of ancylite-(Ce) which is a “mother” material where many rare earths are found.  We were also able to tell a lot from the carbonatites – which is an igneous rock formation that is an indicator of light rare-earth elements (LREEs). There are more than 50 carbonatites identified on the original 40 claims of the Sheep Creek site.

Another factor that distinguishes the Sheep Creek site from other REE projects is a low level of thorium. Thorium is a radioactive material. And therefore, if you have more than an average of 500 parts per million, you would need a permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which can take a long time to secure. We average about 200 parts per million, and that means we don’t have to go through that process. So, we believe that in our time to market, that is an advantage.

We are now in the process of raising money and filing for exploratory permits with the U.S. Forest Service which has authority over the site. We are preparing a plan of operations which will be submitted in a timely manner, including independent exploration by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Hedrick: The first thing we had to do was figure out what was on the site. And so, there are certain things that identify carbonatite – that’s a mineral that sometimes contains rare earths. One of the ways to identify a carbonatite is excess amounts of strontium and barium.  And after analysis, that’s what we have.

One of the other things that defines a carbonatite is LREEs. So, it has lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium, europium and gadolinium. The one that’s the most plentiful is cerium. That’s used in the polishing of every computer chip. When they are layering a chip, cerium is the only element that provides for both abrasive and chemical polishing. It’s not like any other material in the polishing process. So, you can polish something that has a better shine than even the smallest little speck of material based on size because of the chemical polishing. And so that’s why it’s used in every computer chip.

And we also have barium, which is needed for ceramic magnets. Additionally, the critical minerals found in the Sheep Creek deposit can be used for mobile phones, electric vehicles, computer screens, televisions, motors, semiconductors, microchips, and rechargeable batteries.

EPSNews: Are there other REE mining and processing sites in the U.S. and if so, how many?

Hedrick: There’s essentially just one at [Mountain Pass, CA]. There were others, but the original Mollycorp bought them, and they ended up all going out of business when Mollycorp bankrupted itself. And so there have been processing plants in Colorado and Arizona.

EPSNews: So, what’s the timeline for something like this? Do you think the strategic necessity of REES in the Americas could speed things up?

Kaye: It is much easier to raise money for a U.S. rare earths project than it has even been.

Because of the U.S. dependence on China, there is a need for a domestic supply, and not many rare earth projects. U.S. Critical Materials is currently exploring options for funding. We are speaking with potential high net worth and institutional investors. Many people would like to say we have a potential source of REEs.

Our company is currently raising $10 million dollars in an equity round. We are also looking at non-dilutive financing that may come from grants, may come from the government, licensing agreements, joint venture agreements or offtake agreements.

There are things we can and can’t control in regard to timing. The thing we can control is exploration. Ultimately, we are not a mining company. But we are going to be very diligent about the environmental impact of the mining and processing of the materials. That’s a sensitive issue no matter where you are. That means respect for water, respect for air, respect for soil, respect for fish, respect for wildlife, and so on. We are looking for state-of-the-art mining, and off-site processing. It’s important to be environmentally sensitive and environmentally benign.

What is out of our control is the overall government permitting process. We are supervised by both the federal government and the state. But because of the existential issue of dependence on China for 95 percent of rare earths and processing, we are being told there are intentions to streamline the process, if possible.

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