Molycorp Minerals said that it has found rare earth elements in California. The company which owns the rights to mine in Southern California said that three rare earth elements where mineable here. The three rare earth elements they found were dysprosium, terbium and europium.
Dysprosium is used, in conjunction with other elements, in laser materials, terbium in alloys, electronic devices, solid-state devices and fuel cells and europium finds uses in glass for television sets, lasers and other optoelectronic devices.
John Burba, the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Molycorp said that production of the deposits could begin within a year or two if a team determined that the concentration of the minerals warranted an extraction process. He added that this was one of three deposits that they were looking at.
As per Burba the company had taken 26 surface samples from the land located in the Mountain Pass operation. Molycorp is now to launch spectral analysis as a guide to help the company determine where the exploratory drilling should begin.
Mark Smith, the chief executive of Molycorp said that the company might be able to begin producing heavy rare earths in a little over a year from now. That is because the ore deposit is on land near Mountain Pass, Calif., near the Nevada border, where the company has been mining since the early 1950s and has regulatory approval to continue mining and refining for decades.