A common mineral, α-alumina, found abundantly in Earth's crust, may have played a critical role in initiating the chemical reactions necessary for life to begin. This exciting discovery, detailed in a ...

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With 25+ years of experience, Brendon Grunewald is executive director of the Critical Minerals Institute and managing ...

Last summer, mining startup KoBold made a splash when it said it had discovered in Zambia one of the world’s largest copper deposits in more than a decade. Now, another startup, Earth AI, exclusively ...

On a special episode (first released on May 28, 2025) of The Excerpt podcast: We need rare earth minerals for use in items we rely on for modern life. New tech holds possibilities for mining at home ...

Take a tour around the house and see how everyday life is powered by critical minerals and why we will keep hearing so much about them.

America already mines all the critical minerals it needs for energy, defense, and technology, but most are being wasted as mine tailings. Researchers discovered that minerals like cobalt, germanium, ...

We're always learning more about our planet. From figuring out where life on Earth originated to exactly what lies beneath the Earth's surface, there's plenty we still don't know about our little ...

A host of problems with existing projects are only making matters worse. Ore quality—the amount of valuable metal in a sample of rock—is declining, forcing miners to dig deeper; mining permits can ...

Some countries, including the U.S., want to mine the seafloor for rare earth elements used in smartphones and electric cars. But other nations are concerned about the environmental impact. Sponsor ...

In an escalation of his dispute with global trade partners, President Trump called for the Commerce Department to look at possible security risks from America's reliance on imported "rare earth ...