Sounds like something out of a Star Trek movie. Scanning the earth’s crust 3,300 feet underground from the air, looking for traces of things like vanadium, niobium and tantalum.

But it’s not science fiction at all, and it’s happening right now in the Cowboy State.

The Wyoming State Geological Survey has teamed up with the US Geological Survey to find new sources of minerals critical to the nation’s economic and national security that are vulnerable to supply shortages.

They use aeromagnetic surveys, a geophysical prospecting method that analyzes the strength of the magnetic field below the earth to identify likely locations of valuable metals and minerals.

“Rocks have different properties, and these studies can measure that,” Wyoming State Geological Survey geologist Chris Doorn told the Cowboy State Daily. “Rock density, magnetic strength, porosity, electrical conductivity and things like that. These geophysical surveys measure these properties.”

Magnetic data can be measured up to 3,300 feet below the earth’s surface from about 330 feet high in the air.

Radiometry, meanwhile, can look for natural radiation from elements like potassium, thorium and uranium, but only from the upper part of the earth’s surface.

Helicopters are used to fly over mountainous terrain for surveys, and fixed-wing aircraft are used for flat terrain.

Rare Earth Metals

Much has been written about the rare earth elements and their many uses in today’s technological gadgets, everything from mobile phones and computers to electric car batteries, LED lights and even nuclear missiles.

Like rare earth minerals, rare earth metals are not always so rare. But at the time of their discovery, such elements were largely unknown in large quantities, so they were called “rare”.

They are actually quite abundant in the Earth’s crust, but in small concentrations at any given location, mixed with other more abundant elements. This makes their extraction and purification extremely difficult.

But some of the rare earth metals are really rare. Tantalum, for example, is present at the rate of one atom for every 181 billion atoms of other elements.

However, the hypoallergenic blue-gray metal is less expensive than gold, although it is very rare and very useful. It is resistant to corrosion, so it finds uses in things like jet engines, nuclear reactors, and aerospace technology.

It is also ideal for medical implants as it is non-reactive and much more durable than soft metals such as gold or silver.

Niobium is another rare earth metal that is a common component in stainless steel. It improves the strength of steel for applications such as jet engines, rockets, oil and gas pipelines, and beams and girders for skyscrapers and oil rigs.

It is also a superconductor and is frequently used for particle accelerator magnets, MRI scanners, and nuclear magnetic resonance equipment. It can also be added to prescription glasses to make stronger but extremely thin lenses.

Vanadium is a silvery metal that is corrosion resistant and often used as an additive to steel.

Vanadium steel alloys are very hard and shock resistant. They are used to manufacture items such as fairings, axles, gears, piston rods and crankshafts. It also finds some use as pigments for ceramics and glass, and can be used to make superconducting magnets.

These are just a few of the 17 metals called rare earth metals. All have unique properties that make them valuable in a wide variety of applications.

The first survey of its kind in Wyoming

While the technology is not new, this is the first time such a survey has been done in Wyoming.

“The resolution is new,” Doorn said, as is the way the data is collected by flying in straight lines and zigzagging back and forth, 200 meters apart.

The collected data is subjected to computer analysis which produces very high resolution data.

“This is the first time we have such high resolution data that will be available to the general public,” Doorn said. “It will be free and available on the USGS website.”

Funding for the surveys came from both the USGS and Wyoming.

“We have data so far from South Pass and the Seminoe Mountains,” Doorn said. “And we’ve completed a survey that also covers the Medicine Bow Mountains. We are still working through this data and using some of this data to guide sampling designs (for geochemistry reasons).

Geochemical sampling is a separate ground project from aeromagnetic surveys. But aerial surveys help identify where sampling should take place. Soil samples can then help determine where there is a high enough concentration of critical minerals to warrant further exploration.

“There’s a wide variety of rock types in Medicine Bow,” Doorn said. “Many of them are metamorphic and igneous. Some known critical mineral occurrences in Medicine Bow include platinum group elements in a feature called Owen Lake.

There is also vanadium in the complex.

“There’s also potential rare earth elements in Medicine Bow as well as tantalum and niobium and a lot of other potential critical minerals there,” he said.

The industry is already looking to this data for the next mining rush

Industry is already interested in Wyoming’s aeromagnetic and radiometric surveys, and some are collaborating to broaden the scope of the surveys.

“We got our attention in the southeastern area of ​​Wyoming,” Erin Campbell of the Wyoming State Geological Survey told the Cowboy State Daily. “We have a company, whose name will remain confidential, that is working with us to increase the survey area so that we can fly more detailed and more closely spaced lines over their area of ​​interest, and they will keep this data confidential for a year at a time which expand their demand.”

The Wyoming State Geological Survey also heard from companies exploring in central Wyoming who found the data that has been published so far incredibly useful.

“We have emails from them explaining how the data helped them refine their claims,” ​​Campbell said. “And one thing we did for the central Wyoming survey was we surveyed the industry to see where they would like the data to go.”

That helped direct surveys to the South Pass area over Granite Mountain toward the Seminoes.

“This program has one to two years of funding left at this increased rate,” Campbell said. “The program had base funding that wasn’t very high, but the bipartisan Infrastructure and Investment Act increased it by $510 million. It expires in 2026.”

Renee Jean can be contacted at [email protected].