Featured Image Credit: The Nippon Foundation/MARCUS YAM/LOS ANGELES TIMES/Getty
The rare minerals discovered by a research group could be a game changer for their economic security.
The researchers, who are based in Japan, uncovered a treasure trove worth of minerals in the seabed around Minami-Tori-shima island harbors .
The survey was conducted by The Nippon Foundation and the University of Tokyo which discovered around 610,000 metric tons of cobalt and 740,000 metric tons of nickel.
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This could be huge for their manufacturing industry as these minerals are vital for creating electric car batteries.
The studies were done between April and June this year where 100 seabed sites were investigated with probes that reached depths of 17,000 ft to 18,700 ft.
There, the researchers found magnesium nodules, which contain the valuable minerals.
Magnesium nodules are believed to have formed over millions of years, and experts think that many of them have formed around teeth belonging to the prehistoric Megalodon shark, which lived around 23 to 3.6 million years ago.
Yasuhiro Kato, a professor specializing in resource geology at the University of Tokyo, has said that excavators now plan to lift ‘three million tons annually’ from the deposits.
He claimed that this procedure would allow development to continue while ‘minimizing the impact on the marine environment’.
The team will use overseas mining vessels to lift several thousand tons of nodules daily from 2025.
The discovery of the mineral cornucopia is thought to be a ‘jackpot’ where Japan’s electric vehicle industry is concerned.
In a press release, the University of Tokyo said: “Ultimately, we expect that our research outcomes will help boost Japan’s growth by establishing a domestic supply chain stretching from ‘resource-mining’ to ‘manufacturing’, and make Japan a science-technology, and ocean-oriented nation in a true sense of word.”
They also outlined in the report that they want to ‘collaborate with researchers of multiple disciplines’ in the future to develop more ‘environmentally-friendly products/technologies or new high-performance materials, by using various critical metals created from the new resources’.
Across the globe, the US recently experienced their own modern-day gold rush in Wyoming where different minerals including oxides of neodymium, praseodymium, samarium, dysprosium and terbium were uncovered.
The kinds of minerals found are widely used in technology such as smartphones, hybrid cars and aircrafts, as well as more common things like light bulbs and lamps.
The incredible ‘exceeded their wildest dreams,’ said American Rare Earths, the mining company behind the dig.
China is currently the world leader for global manufacturing, holding 31% of the industry worldwide.
But with these new discoveries, that could all soon change.
