Hay Mountain Project Update: The Rare Earth Elements Anomaly

By James A. Briscoe| October 10, 2016

Chris Calem has checked in with an informative article, ”Rare Earth Recovery,” on the Thermo Fisher Scientific blog, Advances in Mining.  While rare earth elements (REEs) are relatively common, they rarely occur in pure form and can be concentrated in a number of different metals, which are processed in different ways. As has been widely reported, China remains the world’s top producer and maintains a monopoly over the REEs market.  With such a diverse and growing need for REEs in fast growing tech and medical industries, one wonders how long China can hold its dominant position. “Forecasts are optimistic that demand for REEs will rebound as the demand for products manufactured with rare earth elements grows, notes Calem. Further, “Increasing demand may also drive mining efforts outside of China. An article on Rare Earth Investing News points out that while still the dominant player, China isn’t the only game in town. Australia holds the world’s third-largest known rare earth reserves, Russia is investing heavily in new rare earth production and extraction techniques, and Thailand and Malaysia maintain rare earth mining operations. Even the United States managed to produce 4,100 tons of REEs in 2015, according to the article.”

When we conducted geochemical sampling throughout the Hay Mountain area of interest in 2011, the geosciences team assembled for the project, including myself, was surprised at the broad presence of four of seventeen REEs. (NR 122 May 15, 2012)  We plan to do additional testing on those samples, rock chip, vegetation and soil, for the other rare earth elements. Unfortunately, that project remains intriguing from a discovery point of view only, and not the main driver toward drilling for a copper/gold/moly dominant ore body.

I have kept abreast and made comment on the importance of rare earth elements for the US economy (“About Rare Earth Elements” Aug. 7, 2013) and while I understand that exploration for them is not a top priority at Hay Mountain right now, there may come a time when American based miners get into REE production. We will keep an eye out for REE readings as we continue with our x-ray fluorescence (XRF) work in the field.   When economic conditions change enough for a real interest in REEs, Liberty Star will be well positioned to enter into a new phase concentrating on this essential basket of strategic metals.

Hay Mountain Project Update

We are working with the Arizona State Land Department renewing our Plan of Operation and expect no delays. We submitted a few new elements to the program, in support of a selective near surface mining project. Our recent Niton XRF work continues to verify that the shallow outcrops containing green and black copper oxide lay throughout the target area. If a surface body of oxide copper (on top of the sulfide copper indicated by ZTEM) proves to be a minable ore body itself, we can selectively mine using a Vermeer Terrain Leveler (VTL), resulting in lower cost mining and ore grade selection than standard methods of open pit mining. The VTL can readily cut the rocks we are confronting. (NR 195, Feb. 24, 2015) Fragmentation achieved by the Vermeer concentrates on the ore bearing interstices of the host rock, maximizing the proportion of exposed surface area of the fragmented material that is ore bearing. This feature yields materials that may be much more available for solvent dissolution than conventionally crushed ore, substantially cutting processing costs. The VTL cuts are adjustable to get the optimum fragment size for heap leaching: all of this without using drilling or blasting. The path to extracting and selling ore becomes much shorter if we can implement a selective shallow mining project. It would be one among several projected mining projects throughout the Hay Mountain complex.

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